


Lover, War is Done (in More Ways than just One)

by Lispet



Category: Captain America; the First Avenger (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, Alpha Males, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, First Time, Friendship, Gen, Knotting, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Masturbation, Omega Verse, Other, Possessive Behavior, Scenting, Self-Lubrication, Spoilers, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:18:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 66,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lispet/pseuds/Lispet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where people are required to submit to others because of the way they were born, there are exceptions to the rule. Aren't there always?<br/>Steve Rogers, Alpha. Everyone thinks he's Omega due to his size and temperament, until Project Rebirth.  Cue in a seventy year jump and the return of an unrequited Bond mate, and maybe this century's too much.<br/>And as they say, compassion is the measure of a man.</p><p>incomplete and will never be finished. any eager writer is welcome to try their hand at finishing it 
            </p></blockquote>





	1. It all begins somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU where humans descended from canines, not primates. So yes, they have ears and tails similar to dogs, their sense of smell is slightly advanced, their hearing is better too, and yes, they are ALL partially colour blind and have tails and their canine teeth are more prominent and sharper, and stuff and random fact! Dogs rarely get cavities with a proper diet, so people in this story won't get cavities often, providing they are healthy (cough Steve cough). Except Tony Stark. But they said he couldn't build JARVIS, and he did...  
> Some things in this AU that normally are quite wrong for humans to do are perfectly acceptable in this world, this includes petting hair, touching ears with normal people, licking and even touching genitals (usually through clothes) in friends and relatives. It’s dog behaviour. They are descended from wolves so just shh and read the story.  
> I hope you enjoy it!  
> And yes I start writing more of this and then feel the need to explain myself even more so you have the longest notes section ever.

Steve didn’t hate society, and the forced roles that went with it. He didn’t hate himself, or his parents, or genetics, which would ensure that he was almost guaranteed to be submissive, weak, _pathetic,_ and he didn’t hate the people who took it upon themselves to point this out to him at every turn in life—his alcoholic father, the kids on his street who would never let him play cricket with them, the people at school, minus Bucky of course—no, the only thing he really hated about all of this was that he couldn’t force himself to stand down to a stronger, more dominant Alpha-male when he had to, when he knew that if he didn’t, he’s have to walk home with a bloodied nose and a limp.  


He didn’t choose the genetics that almost guaranteed him to be an Omega, not that that was confirmed yet anyway, he still had puberty to consider, until then, everyone was Omega, inferior, but it was usually easy to tell who would turn out on top.  


The only person he knew that didn’t push him around for the hell of it was his child-hood friend, James Barnes. Well, everyone just called him Bucky.  
Bucky hit an early puberty at thirteen, and for Steve, it was almost painful to watch his friend’s growth spurt, the change in his maturity, (the maturity bit was a little easier. Steve had always been rather sensible even as a child and early teen, so it was more of Bucky catching up to him in that manner), and the worst part, Bucky’s altered role in society.  


No longer a child-Omega, Bucky stood in a position of power, at least until everyone else caught up with him. He was treated differently by, and acted differently around adults. They didn’t shelter him anymore; they didn’t really need to. Along with his growth spurt, his glands grew, or refined, giving him the hearing, smell, and taste of an adult, he could tell now, without having to overhear, or be told, who was Alpha, Beta, or Omega. He just _knew._  


Even as a Beta, Bucky got a little twitchy when an Omega in Senior Year was going into, or out of, a heat. Omegas were banned from school whilst on their heat. It was physically dangerous—Alphas became very aggressive when an Omega went on heat, and they didn’t make much distinction between Alpha and Beta.  
However even after his change, Bucky didn’t treat him any differently. Bucky just stayed Bucky. That was an advantage of someone being a Beta. They weren’t as driven by hormones and pheromones and the need to mate, they remained more neutral, more open and less instinct driven.  


Nevertheless, Bucky was always there to patch him up when he got his nose punched in.  


Like right now.  


“You know, you’ve been doing this for nearly eighteen years now Steve.” Bucky reached down, leaning on the bricks for balance, “I thought you’d have learnt by now.”  


Steve frowned, and looked away, at the ground to check that he hadn’t dropped anything. “I can’t just back down to them though! It just doesn’t feel right.” Steve sighed, and carefully poked his nose. It wasn’t bleeding, that was a start. “I mean I’m the only Omega they’ve ever pushed around like this. Aren’t they supposed to be, y’know, _nice_?”  


Bucky laughed, and wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulder, patting firmly. “It’s just because you’re the only child-Omega left. Once you’re fertile, they’ll never look at you the same. And who knows? You might fill out a little whilst you’re at it!”  


Steve poked Bucky in the ribs for that, and Bucky just laughed again.  


Bucky steered him to the bathroom, where Steve could lean against the metal trough and clean himself up in the mirror before they went to class.  


“You sure you’re going to be fine?” Bucky had to ask, he and Steve were in different years, Steve the year above, which made Bucky’s early puberty _really_ unfair, y’know, because Steve was nearly two years older than him.  


“Yeah, I think we’re watching a film.” Steve used the hem of his shirt to wipe the last drops of water from his face.  


“Which one?” Bucky was lounging against the brickwork by the door, patiently waiting for his friend.  


“Some of the Great War propaganda I think.” Steve shuddered. The war was past, so why show them any of the footage? It was pointless and quite disturbing, violent, but the others seemed to be perfectly fine with it. Perhaps it was the Omega in him talking, which was exactly why Omegas weren’t supposed to become soldiers. They were too soft, too emotional and susceptible to any Alpha who gave an order, turning them into potential hazards for their own team. Well, with use of suppressants, Omegas still managed to get into the military—they needed the numbers, not every Beta and Alpha was fit for, or wanted to go to battle, and Omegas lived to serve.  


Betas made good soldiers, they were immune to pheromones, but had a part of the drive of an Omega—that they wanted to please their Alpha, their commanding officer, but they could keep their heads when they went into battle, they didn’t go into heat, they weren’t susceptible to any Alpha they weren’t familiar with.  


Naturally, Alphas were the leaders; they were inherently built for it, all muscle with the want to be superior to everyone else, aggressive, possessive and strong.  


No wonder Steve stood no chance when he attempted to resist the bullying.  


“Sounds… fun.” Steve could hear the doubt in Bucky’s voice, and rolled his eyes. “We’ve got like five minutes, and I don’t want to get in trouble with the teacher. My ass is still sore from the last beating.” Bucky pushed himself off the wall when Steve walked past him, out towards the main building.  


“You punched an Alpha in the face.”  


“He was going to break your ribs!”  


“Wasn’t worth it.” Steve jumped up on a bench as they walked past so he was taller than Bucky, and glared down at the Beta.  


“Kept you safe.” Bucky grabbed Steve’s wrist and pulled, and Steve fell off the bench as they walked. “Well, you’re seventeen, nearly eighteen now. You’ll phase soon, there hasn’t been a person who hasn’t yet.”  


“There’s always a first.” Steve pointed out. Steve ducked into the doorway of the nearest room—his classroom. “See you later.”  


Class went down pretty normally; Steve sat three rows back, managed not to die via asthma when the teacher had him clean the duster for the blackboard, took notes when he had to, bit his cheek to avoid snapping back at the Alphas who kicked the back of his chair—he was too light for his weight to do anything, and was squashed painfully between his chair and the edge of his desk. They did watch the movie about the Great War, and Steve tried not to watch it too much, instead going for scribbling on the edge of his notebook.  


And then it hit him.  


His throat closed over, similar to one of his asthma attacks, and he slumped forwards a little, his fingers reaching out to grab something to pull him back to earth—the edge of his desk—and he forced himself to breath in. He was horribly aware that he probably looked ridiculous, gasping for air like a fish out of water, his body twitching like it was a highly-strung wire, and someone poked him in the shoulder.  


He waved vaguely, _I’m okay_ , and closed his eyes, counted to ten, breathed deep and calm, he could and had dealt with an asthma attack without his drugs.  


When his breathing fit subsided, he was also hyper-aware of everything, the kid in the back row who was scrunching up a ball of paper, how bright and stark the film was against the projector screen, the roughness of the wooden desk, which had always felt so smooth before, under his fingers, and how heavy and restricting his clothing felt, the metallic tang of excitement on his tongue, and over all of that, the thick, heavy musky, slightly salty, overbearingly sweet smell that suddenly filled the room, clogging up his sinuses, probably what had bought his asthma on. His whole body reacted to the smell, and he felt that he couldn’t move, that he was crowded, boxed into his chair not just by the smell, but by pure carnal _fear_ that something (bad) would happen to him if he moved and acted on the impulses sent by his body.  


He clenched his hands into fists until his nails dug into his palms against the unbidden lust that swirled through him and tried to breathe through his mouth as best he could, blocked the scents out, locked his brain on something that had nothing to do with any of this at all. Like Bucky.  


Oh God what he’d give for Bucky to be here to guide him through this. The first heat for an Omega was always rough, he should’ve been prepare—  


He choked on his next inhale when he gasped. What if this was his first heat? Stuck in a stuffy classroom where he couldn’t do a thing, surrounded by Alphas and Betas and the rest of the Omegas stuffed down the back of the room—he could smell that they were Alphas, that was where the bulk of the musk smell was coming from, the salt and sickly sweet from somewhere else, probably him—any one of them could take advantage of him, _control_ him, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing, forced to follow his Omega instincts, they could do anything, and he would be compelled to submit, fall to his knees, spread his legs for whoever wanted him because an Omega couldn’t, _wasn’t allowed to_ , say ‘no’ to an Alpha.  


It could get them killed.  


The smell was starting to get strong, way too strong for him, the musk and the sweet clouding into his brain, aided in there by his sudden panic, and it suddenly seemed very logical for him to bolt from the room, around the corner to wind up somewhere, shaking and panting and nearly crying, because the smell wasn’t going away so he _had_ to be going into his first heat and _now wasn’t the time!_ And his whole body ached with the unfamiliar desire to rut against something and when he looked up, he was standing outside a classroom, and he didn’t hesitate to knock on the door when the numbers on the plaque became coherent.  


“Yes?” The teacher answered the door, Steve couldn’t help but blurt out ‘Bucky!’, before coming to his senses, taking in the strong, powerful smell of the teacher—he was only a Beta, his scent was more neutral and it temporarily overrode his heat and Steve could think clearly. Make up a lie.  


“Sorry sir, Mr. Mayfield would like to speak to James Barnes please.”  


The teacher took him in, took in his startled expression, the panic, the heaving chest and the sweat beading on the skin of his brow and neck, and probably Steve’s _smell,_ and jerked a tiny nod, and opened the sliding door further, stepping aside to show the class, previously working on mathematical equations, but all of them were staring at the door, and the spectacle Steve was making, several of them fidgeted, probably as affected by Steve’s odour as he was, but only Bucky stood out to Steve, Bucky, who in a split second, went from calm to as nearly panicked as Steve was, but the only visible appearance was a slight pinch between his brows and eyes that darted around the room, almost as if daring an Alpha to step up and even _try_ to claim Steve. Bucky could and would take them on for Steve, to preserve Steve’s honour and virtue. Steve didn’t feel like crying anymore, but felt like crying more at the same time.  


“Thank you, sir.” Bucky said in passing to his teacher, ducking his head submissively to the elder Beta. The door almost slammed shut behind Bucky’s back, and Bucky grabbed Steve’s arm, dragging him away, out towards the oval at the back of the school. “What happened?”  


Steve couldn’t find the energy or will to resist Bucky, either physically or mentally and let himself be hauled away, let his mouth run away from him, telling Bucky everything, from the asthma attack right up until Bucky started dragging him off, how he felt now, how he felt that he desperately needed _something,_ what he didn’t know yet.  


Bucky finally stopped at the back of the shed that housed the school’s meager supply of sports equipment, and put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, putting pressure down, trying to force him to kneel. Steve didn’t think about it, his knees just locked and he resisted bluntly, automatically, and his fingers clenched into fists again.  


“ _No_.” Steve was shocked with how his voice came out, harsh and demanding, since when had he spoken to Bucky like that?  


“Steve, _obey_.” Bucky’s voice deepened a little, attained a little authority, authority that made something inside Steve rear up and fight back, and Steve unconsciously pushed Bucky’s hand off his shoulder. Bucky grabbed Steve’s upper arms instead, one bicep in each hand, and pulled him to the dusty concrete ground. “Just trying to help.” The brunette murmured, “I know it’s a little frightening.”  


Steve huffed a laugh, forced his body to relax when Bucky guided them both to the earth, settled in Bucky’s lap when invited. “You’re telling me?”  


Bucky grinned at him, and shifted so he was sitting with his back to the corrugated iron shed, so Steve was straddling his thighs. “This less intimidating?”  


Steve only nodded, and didn’t think about much else, driven by a bone deep need to get as close to warm soft flesh as possible, that warm flesh being his best friend, he didn’t hesitate to think about consequences and what would happen between them after this? Bucky couldn’t bond with an Omega, not in the way an Alpha could, he just tugged at Bucky’s shirt, encouraging the Beta to strip it off before pulling his own off, letting Bucky’s hands smooth across his skin, his ribs, his narrow shoulders, just as his own hands greedily took in as much of Bucky as they could, scraping the backs of his nails across Bucky’s chest, the firm muscles, and the bones of his clavicles.  


Bucky shivered under his touch, and Steve felt a little proud of himself, before letting Bucky press a kiss to his mouth, insistent and warm and Steve instantly craved more, even as his lungs screamed for oxygen against another impeding asthma attack.  


Eventually survival won out and Steve pulled away, sucking air into his weak lungs and body, and he scraped his fingers through Bucky’s slightly coarse hair, scratching his scalp slightly around the edges of his ears, and Bucky leant into the caress, a slight noise on his lips.  


The noise did something subtle to Steve, as did the slight, weak pheromones Bucky was giving off, and Steve rocked his hips forwards and down, rubbing their groins together insistently.  


It didn’t take long to get them both off, not with hands pressing against sensitive spots and glands the incited the release of more pheromones, and Steve moaned Bucky’s name into the Beta’s shoulder when he came, and bit down none too gently to muffle the most of his cry.  


That seemed to be enough to send Bucky over the edge too, and the brunette leant his head back against the shed, seemingly oblivious to the bruise Steve had produced on his shoulder.  


“Is that better?” Bucky asked when his harsh breaths had subsided.  


Steve was still shuddering a little, his skin crawling in unusual ways, but he nodded, trying to keep his lips against Bucky’s skin, breathing as deeply as he could past the ever-threatening asthma, breathing in Bucky’s faint but undeniably masculine scent. He felt a little lightheaded, but that could be because his heart was still going a mile-a-minute.  


“You right there?” was Bucky’s next question. Steve just swept his tongue over the steadily blooming mark on Bucky’s skin, before leaning back a little to inspect it, feeling slightly smug (for unknown reasons) of his handiwork. He felt a smidgen uncomfortable, both he and Bucky had come in their pants, and it was a little sticky and warm and Steve almost wanted to do it again.  


_Almost._  


“What are you doing?” Bucky glanced down, lifted his hands to drag them through Steve’s blonde locks, down his neck, to rest at the small of his back again.  
“Not sure.” Steve hummed, slumping against Bucky. He felt stronger than he ever had before and he wasn’t quite sure why, but it was a nice feeling, and he felt that the feeling stemmed from Bucky, so he was just going to soak it all up whilst he could.  


“Steve.” Bucky twisted his head as much as he could to see what Steve had been doing, licking his shoulder like that, not that it didn’t feel nice, the tip of Steve’s tongue dancing across his skin, it was just unusual.  


“Mmm?” Steve snuggled closer, closed his eyes, but the rest of his senses were on full alert, or as full alert as one can be after orgasm, especially one of the most potent orgasms he had even had.  


“Why is there… did you mark me? Why would you…” Bucky fell silent, and he hands tightened slightly on Steve’s waist. “Steve, you marked me.”  


Steve glanced at the mark on Bucky’s skin again before resuming his comfortable and warm position. “I guess I did.”  


“Why did you mark me?”  


“I’m not sure.” And he wasn’t. He also wasn’t quite 100% sure why he wasn’t still a horny, sex craving mess right now. From what he had heard, the first heat turned every Omega into a jumble of chaos and pheromones and _want_. Maybe his weak body just didn’t allow it. That was possible. Malnutrition was one of the know reasons an Omega might skip a heat, or the heat might not run its full course. Something that produced so much _stuff_ required a lot of energy. Much of which Steve didn’t have. “It felt right.”  


“Steve, Omegas don’t mark.” Bucky drew his hand up and rubbed his shoulder, rubbed the mark thoughtfully, breathed deep through his nose, and then chuckled. “Oh my God I’m an idiot.” His chuckle degenerated into a laugh, and soon he was gasping for air, clutching uselessly at Steve for an anchor.  
“Bucky.” Steve groaned a complaint. “This isn’t funny. I’m comfortable, I’m going through my first heat, just _stop laughing!_ ” Steve grabbed Bucky’s waist firmly, doing his best to hold his friend still.  


Bucky calmed himself as best he could, tried to speak too. “Not…” Snigger. “Not heat.” Bucky broke down into a state of near tears of mirth, and leant his head back against the shed.  


Steve only panicked more, and managed to complain in garbled whines.  


Bucky closed his eyes, took a deep breath that nearly sent him into a fit of giggles again, and grabbed Steve’s shoulders. He cracked his muddy brown eyes open and looked Steve dead in the eye. “You’re not in heat.” He managed, as seriously as he could. “You’re not even an Omega.”  


“What?”  


“You’re not an Omega.” Bucky repeated. “They’re all going to have a field day.” He muttered that part. “Steve stop daydreaming, you amazing creature!” Bucky’s arms closed around him tightly, almost painfully, and Bucky rested his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. “You’re an Alpha! Oh this all makes sense now, why you let yourself get beat up instead of running, why Omegas stare at us, Steve you’re astounding!” Steve was puzzled, just a little. There was no chance that he was an Alpha… was there? Bucky was moving, and a growl was snatched from his throat before he could stop it. Why was Bucky moving? Was he trying to escape? Why would he want to escape? Bucky was Steve’s. Bucky froze, and Steve’s jaw dropped open in shock.  


“I just… I’m so sorry, I don’t know why-”  


Bucky clamped one hand over Steve’s mouth, and reached for his shirt with the other. “You’re running on instincts. Just try not to snap at anyone else. They’ll probably try to hurt you.”  


Steve wanted to resist when Bucky put his shirt on, he wanted to stop Bucky putting his own shirt on, finding the skin-skin contact rather addicting and pleasant, but instead he leant down to press his lips to Bucky’s throat, took in the weak Beta scent, and that quelled what lust was still swirling around in him.  


“I’m going to take you back to class, if you think you can handle it.”  


“I can handle it.” Steve said trying to sound like he didn’t just come in his pants five minutes ago.  


Bucky led him to class after tucking his shirt into his pants properly, and Steve started feeling a little apprehensive. What would his teacher do to him for just bolting like that? And the crap he’d get from the guys in his class. That would be just as bad, or worse than his punishment from the teacher. And would they smell the difference in Steve now? No, any scent he let off, even just after what he and Bucky had just done would be drowned out by the far stronger, and ingrained scent of students from years past.  


“You think you’re going to be alright?” Bucky squeezed Steve’s shoulder, pulled him a little closer to the Beta’s body.  


“Yeah, teacher will knock me around a little, but nothing I can’t take.” Steve leant against Bucky, having felt a little weak in the knees since getting up to go back to class.  


“Need anything else?” Bucky asked, hand sliding away from Steve’s body. He shifted a little, following the touch, the warmth. Bucky took the hint and scraped both his hands through Steve’s hair, from hairline to the nape of Steve’s neck, pausing at Steve's ears, rubbing them between forefinger and thumb, Steve melted a little, and pulled the blonde close, into his arms and Steve pressed his face into the slight crevasse between Bucky’s chest and arm, where Bucky’s scent was the strongest, and pressed the palm of his hand against Bucky’s left shoulder, where the mark was. _Mine._  


“Go on, scamp. Get to class before someone sees us.” Bucky gave Steve a small push towards the door, and Steve opened it a crack.  


“That’s not what you said before.” He commented with a smirk before slipping back into his classroom. He trailed his fingers along the wall on the way back to his seat, got tripped once, and received a stern glare from the teacher saying that ‘he was staying back after class’. He just nodded and shrank into his chair, trying not to think about the sickly sweet smell that was now associated with this room. The smell was just the same as before, muted a bit through Bucky’s neutral smell, but still enough to make his head swim, enough to make him feel short of breath.  


The bell rang, loud and sharp about twenty minutes later, and Steve packed his things away, but waited for the teacher to approach him before leaving.  


Sadly, the other Alphas in his class approached him before the teacher did.  


“Aww, poor little Omega can’t handle the smell of another going into heat?” One of them jeered, leaning on his shoulders. So that’s what a heat smelt like, terribly sweet and a hint sweaty. He couldn’t fully understand what the others liked about it. Steve stiffened and shifted when weight bore down on top of him, feeling hedged in, unsafe, threatened. Bucky’s scent was fast fading from him, easily drowned by the thick, musky Alpha smell the others carried.  


Steve jerked his head, no, once.  


“‘S alright though, he probably wouldn’t handle his own first heat much better. Probably would hurl the moment he got the first cramp.” They all laughed, and Steve fisted his hands in the hem of his shirt. Bucky got beaten for attaching an Alpha, and everyone knew that he was a Beta. If Steve had a go at any of these Alphas, when his teacher thought he was an _Omega,_ well, Steve didn’t know what would happen.  


“Nah, wait a sec, he smells like Alpha.”  


“So?”  


“What if he’s had his heat and he’s mated?”  


One of them laughed—the one leaning on his shoulders, and the guy pressed his nose into Steve’s hair to smell. Steve very nearly snarled, ears already flat against his skull. “Who would want to even try?”  


Before any of them could say anything else, the teacher approached, and they all scattered, leaving Steve shivering in rage in his chair. The teacher squatted down in front of Steve’s desk, so he was eye-to-eye with the blonde.  


“Is everything alright?” Mr. Mayfield, Steve’s teacher, was perhaps one of the scariest men in the school. He was also insanely strong—strong enough to knock around the misbehaving Alpha Seniors in Steve’s class, even though he was a Beta. Steve admired him for it, but didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his ruler.  


“I just felt a little ill,” Steve lied, “and needed some fresh air.”  


“First time’s always the worst.” Mayfield said suddenly, and Steve tensed a little more. Was he actually going to get ‘the talk’ when he didn’t need it anymore? “It wasn’t easy watching my sister go through her first heat.” Steve blushed at Mayfield’s forwardness, and Mayfield rocked back on his heels. “What I’m trying to say is if you need to take a few days off, just don’t come to school, alright? You’ve pretty much earnt it with your grades any way.” Mayfield stood. “Dismissed, Rogers.”  
Steve bolted.  


Bucky was waiting for him outside the room, and Steve nearly crashed into him.  


“Well?”  


“Mayfield tried giving me the talk.” Steve groaned. They both fell in step, heading away from the school, towards Steve’s place. “I think I’d have rather been hit over the knuckles.” Steve paused. “Maybe not, but he’s pretty much given me permission to take the next, oh, _week_ off if I need it.”  


“What, he can’t smell the Alpha on you?”  


“Apparently not,” Steve suddenly remembered the guys from class, “the guys in class did though, and I nearly hit one of them when he smelt my hair.”  


“Good thing you didn’t.” Bucky said. “You know we can have so much fun with this, right?”  


“One of them thought I mated. Oh God Bucky really who would mate with me?”  


Bucky shrugged. “I would, but we can’t.”  


Steve snorted, and then coughed, “Right, yeah, well uhh… thanks?” Bucky would mate with him? Steve felt a sudden rush of everything, affection, joy, _possessiveness_. But… “Why can’t we?”  


Bucky stopped dead and stared at Steve. “Pull your head out of the ground! Last male-Alpha-Beta pairing I heard about… well, it didn’t turn out pretty. It’s just not allowed.”  


“Why?” Okay, so Steve didn’t get the chance to get out much.  


Bucky leant close to Steve, and glanced around. They could, despite this apparent Alpha-Beta mating issue that really Steve thought was a load of bull, be seen this close because honestly, Steve passed for a really crappy Omega at the best of times. “There’s talk that the world’s headed for war again soon. The government wants a larger population, so if the pairing can’t produce superior offspring, it’s illegal.”  


“That’s stupid!” Steve yelped. Bucky rolled his eyes. “I mean, if two people imprint, then why stop them?”  


“It doesn’t matter.” Bucky shrugged, apparently totally unconcerned by it. “It’s not like we’re going to imprint or bond for that matter anyway. It would’ve happened already.”  


“Bucky, I only just found out what I was today. Is that really enough time to-”  


“You just found out that you’re an Alpha, and then kidnapped me to jerk off. I think you’d know.”  


“But I _marked_ you!”  


“Instinct.” Bucky said quickly. “You’d’ve done it to anyone you care about.”  


“Oh that list sums of you and you and oh, you. Because clearly mum doesn’t count.”  


“Doesn’t mean that we’ve imprinted.” Bucky ruffled Steve’s hair, and Steve ducked away. “Well when the war comes I guess I’ll have to go.”  


“Not without me you won’t.”  


“Since when have you been interested in war?”  


“I know I wouldn’t be able to force myself to sit by whilst every other guy I grew up with lays his life on the line for his country. I’d do anything to protect everyone here, because really, what do I have to offer to the gene pool?”  


“Nerdy-ness.” Bucky deadpanned.  


Steve sniggered. “Try dorky-ness.”  


The both burst into laughter.  


“Better than what a lot of others have to offer.” Bucky finally said when they stopped giggling. “We could use more people like you in this world.”  


Originally, Steve thought Bucky was saying that to make him feel better.


	2. Apologies

I'm so sorry everyone, this story's going to have to go on hiatus. I won't be able to write any more for a while, I just won't be in a fit emotional state to produce anything worth posting for a few weeks. That and I have exams.

You can stop reading now because the rest is just why I'm not going to be fit to write, and it's pretty horrible, I just thought some of you might like to know why I'm just not writing any more.

Seriously guys, stop reading, you don't need to cry.

So, my mare (horse) has been pregnant for the past eleven months, and she gave birth to twins and they were stillborn, there wasn't really anything we could've done. I'm waiting for the vet to show up now, to make sure that Maggie (the mare) is all right, and that she's not bleeding internally or anything. You don't need to feel sorry for me or anything, Really, you don't. And I promise that I'll keep writing this story, you can just ignore all of this and there'll be another chapter in a month or two. I'm so sorry I have to stop writing. I know how much many of you are waiting patiently for the next chapter, and I'm so sorry that you're getting this news instead of some more Bucky/Steve PWP.

So just, don't bother commenting on this chapter or anything, I'll reply still, but just feel sorry and don't say anything. I'll just imagine that you are sad and we can be imagining sad through the interwebs together. Because it's easier, and I'm wasting less of your time.


	3. The real Chapter 2

1941

When Steve’s mother died, he moved eighteen blocks down, and six to the left to live with his grandma. It put him even further away from Bucky than he had been, but they still kept in contact, very frequent contact, seeing as Bucky didn’t exactly have a proper home, his dad having died of a tumour, and his mum in a depressive funk, working the rest of the time, and so that left Bucky to do exactly as he pleased. 

Most of the time, whatever Bucky pleased was spending his time with Steve, and it wasn’t uncommon for Steve, in college now, to wake up with Bucky’s arm cast over the small of his back, pinning him to the sheets. 

Steve didn’t mind a great deal. It gave him a good excuse to pull his pillow over his head and sleep for another five minutes. But then he always had to push himself out of bed, because he was in college now, first year Fine Arts and it was so much better than high school, but so much worse, because every other student in his class was a Beta or an Omega, and Bucky joked that he was lucky, but they both knew better. 

“ _Oh God Bucky,_ ” Steve pressed his face into the crook of his elbow, and Bucky’s hand tightened on his hip, enough to leave bruises, but everything was enough to leave bruises. 

Omegas were Steve’s downfall. They were a literal health hazard to him. 

Three times a year, an Omega went on heat, unless they were on suppressants, which were an inconvenience, and unreliable. The main purpose of this heat was for an Omega to signal, mainly to an Alpha, when they could most easily conceive. These signals ranged from pheromones to body language, and on the odd occasion when both of these failed, spoken word was resorted to. 

Unfortunately, Steve was an Alpha. Unfortunately, he was asthmatic, and his asthma was easily incited by the pheromones of an Omega in heat. And it really, _really_ hurt to be mid-asthma attack, so he wasn’t that lucky to be the only Alpha in his class. 

“It’s all right Steve, I’ve got you.” Bucky’s voice was hot and heavy against his ear, just as Bucky’s body was hot and heavy, pressed against Steve’s side, helplessly rutting against him occasionally. Steve reached down and grabbed Bucky’s hand, and pulled it to his mouth, sucking the fingers against his tongue and pressing them to the roof of his mouth, taking care not to nick the digits with his teeth. The pheromones were bad enough for him without them being directly released into his mouth via blood. 

Bucky’s other hand shifted from his hip and yanked his slacks down in response, and Steve actually did bite Bucky’s fingers right then when the Beta gripped Steve’s hard cock suddenly. 

Bucky hissed in pain, and his fingers jerked out of Steve’s mouth, but not before Steve’s tongue swiped across the small cuts, cleaning away the blood. Steve moaned and tried to follow the saliva-blood-slicked hand, but he was just too short to reach. 

“Easy there.” Bucky pressed his lips to the inside of Steve’s ear, running his tongue along the hairless interior carefully. “Just relax, I’ve got this.” He tugged with his hand still wrapped around Steve’s length, gently, rubbing his thumb over the tip. Bucky shuffled down then, teeth raking down the bumps of his ribs, two sharp lines of not quite pain, before there was a tentative wet prod along with Bucky’s fingers on his cock, and when he threw his head back and keened, Bucky gained a little confidence and wrapped his lips around the tip. 

Steve reached down, pushed his fingers through the dark hair hovering over his hips, and sought out Bucky’s ears, rubbing them between his fingers, and Bucky hummed, and pulled off, his tongue licking a wet stripe up the underside of Steve’s length. “You should walk around naked.” He was told, the sentence punctuated by scraping teeth, gentle against his soft skin. “With a dick like this, any Omega would throw themselves at you.” 

Steve blushed crimson at that, the redness seeping down his shoulders, and pulled Bucky’s hair sharply, the only response he got to that was a chuckle and Bucky’s mouth back on his length a little more. 

“Nngh, Bucky, _Bucky_ stop.” When he felt his orgasm coming on, Steve pulled at Bucky’s ear, and Bucky back off, his hand still working Steve firmly. Steve gasped and shuddered when his release hit him, riding out the airless waves almost silently, and everything swirled to black. 

“Wow, jeez, way to freak a guy out.” Bucky’s nose was pressed into the underside of his jaw when he came to, and Steve abashedly realised he had passed out. 

Screw. Asthma. 

“Sorry.” Steve breathed. He watched his breath condense as white fog above him. His fingers played on Bucky’s ear against his control, and Bucky squirmed a little. “Did you…” 

“Sorted myself out.” Bucky withdrew, and reached down for the blanket before flopping on his stomach, still naked. Steve let his eyes wander down the athletic back that remained uncovered. He reached out and traced a muscle, and down the curve of Bucky’s spine, stopping just shy of the blankets. 

“Thanks.” Steve rolled over, and tugged the sheets up to their shoulders. He cast an arm over Bucky, fully aware that he should be getting up and getting dressed or something. It was four in the afternoon for crying out loud!, but couldn’t bring himself to. He propped himself up a little and shifted so he was looming over the Beta a little, and Bucky gripped the pillow tightly when Steve bent to bite at his shoulder, where the ever-present mark was. 

Omegas might be his undoing, but Bucky would always be there to help him piece himself back together.

_Right?_

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1942 

“You suck.” Steve pushed himself away from the wall when Bucky finally emerged from the enrolment tent. It was the first time Steve applied, Bucky’s first time too, Steve had been rejected the moment he walked into the tent. He could smell the subtle shift of pheromones in the other recruits and the recruiting officer—and burly Alpha who hardly took time to look at Steve, let alone smell him—and once that had been confirmed, he was pretty much kicked out, and had to resign himself to waiting for Bucky out in the cold. 

Bucky had emerged nearly an hour later, grinning broadly, enrolment papers clutched in his fist. 

“Hey, now I don’t have to worry about you.” Bucky said, as if this was a silver lining. Didn’t mean that Steve wouldn’t be worrying about Bucky. 

“You’ll get shipped out and then what’ll I do when I’m about to get my front teeth knocked out in a back alleyway?” 

“You won’t get there in the first place.” They started walking to the nearest pub, perhaps closer to each other than strictly necessary, Steve had serious issues concerning his possessiveness of his only friend, and Bucky knew that Steve, even after three years of knowing that he was capable of pure Alpha aggression, just couldn’t tame himself at the best of times. 

“Come on, I don’t get shipped out for another two months, minimum. Let’s go find us a nice pair of Beta dames, and go dancing.” 

Steve huffed, but agreed, and let Bucky usher him into the pub. 

The bartender eyed Steve when Bucky sat him in one of the stools, and Steve stared back, unconsciously assuming the most dominant frame he could, which really didn’t work too well. Bucky took the seat next to Steve, and pushed his enrolment notice in his pocket before turning to the nearest girl, offering his wrist for her to smell—common etiquette. He smiled at her, all teeth and sparkly eyes and Steve wanted to just leave and go home, or back to the enrolment tent and demand that they take his enrolment seriously. 

The dame turned Bucky down, and soon it became apparent that it was a lost cause tonight, so Steve and Bucky went home to Bucky’s apartment and curled up back-to-back on the mattress like they always did when they went to bed.

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Steve didn’t stop trying to enlist. Nor did he stop smart-mouthing Alphas who didn’t hesitate to corner him and throw a punch or two. It wasn’t so much smart mouthing though, as standing up for people who didn’t have the nerve or will to do so themselves, like the Omegas that had already been cornered by the Alphas. It was almost embarrassing for Bucky to come and rescue him, but then Steve recalled high school and the number of times and the manner in which Bucky had helped him out then, how Bucky _still_ had to help him in that manner, and everything seemed to be put back in perspective. 

After the fifth rejection from the military, Steve began to think that there was no chance that he would be able to help, but Bucky was being deported in three days, and he couldn’t just let Bucky go without him. But technically it was illegal for someone to apply more than once, let alone five times, even if he had ‘come from’ different cities. One more try wouldn’t hurt, would it? 

But he had _three days_ , was that enough time to find a recruiting station he hadn’t yet visited without Bucky finding out? 

Bucky had taken it upon himself to stop Steve going to war, no matter what. If it weren’t so crippling to what little pride Steve had as an Alpha, he’d probably find it rather endearing. 

The night before Bucky was deported, Bucky, wearing his military uniform (he looked quite smart, Steve thought), literally forced him out of the apartment where Steve was drawing, and made him come downtown with a pair of Beta-females who clearly didn’t believe that Steve was an Alpha, to the exhibition that was being run by Stark Industries. 

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe Bucky had stopped Steve from getting his head punched in… again. And Steve might have agreed only because he just found out that Bucky was being put in the 107th, the squadron that was being sent directly to the front lines. (After a quick stop in England) 

The expo was big. There were a variety of displays, but the one that took centre stage was the flying car that Howard Stark himself was presenting. 

To Steve, everything about Howard screamed ‘Alpha’, even if Howard didn’t display the more physical characteristics of one. It was just something in the way he carried himself, made himself heard by everyone around him, that gave this away. Well, it wasn’t like Betas or Omegas were allowed to run such a large company as Stark Industries anyway. 

The flying car didn’t quite work properly, the things that replaced the wheels exploded and the car hit the deck. Howard had just laughed. “I did say a few years, didn’t I?” 

At the Expo, Steve had spotted the military section, the developing weaponry from Stark Industries, the display for the uniforms. He couldn’t really help but leave Bucky and the girls whose names he never learnt, and wander over there.

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Steve’s reflection made it up to the shoulder of the military uniform on display when he stepped on the plate and he was given two seconds to be irritated about this before Bucky gave his shoulder a gentle shove. 

“Come on, you’re kind of missing the point of a double date!” Bucky’s tone was light-hearted, jovial. 

“You go ahead, I’ll catch up.” Steve didn’t pause, just turned around, trying to keep his face as straight as he could. 

Bucky looked at the display over Steve’s shoulder, and almost sighed. “You really going to do this again?” 

Steve didn’t correct his grammar. “Well, it’s a fair. I’m going to try my luck.” He turned away a little. 

Bucky grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him around, borderline angry. “As who, Steve from Ohio?” Steve didn’t meet Bucky’s eyes because it was _true_. “They’ll catch you, or worse, they’ll actually _take_ you.” 

Steve wanted to bury his face in his palms, why couldn’t Bucky just _understand_? “Look, I know you don’t think I can do this—” 

Bucky spoke right over him. “This isn’t college, Steve. This is war.” Steve huffed, close to a growl. “I know it’s a war!” The hand on his shoulder tightened painfully. “Then why are you so keen to fight?” Bucky was barely keeping his temper in check. “There are so many important jobs!” “What am I going to do? Collect scrap metal,” “ _Yes!_ ” 

He disregarded the interruption and continued smoothly, “in my little red wagon?” 

“Why not?” 

“I’m not going to sit in a factory, Bucky.” He paused and Bucky was still trying to make him stop talking. “ _Bucky! Come on!_ ” Steve altered his voice, allowing, rather _forcing_ a little Alpha in. Bucky shut up, compelled to listen now. “There are men laying down their lives.” Not just men, Betas, Omegas too. “I’ve got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand.” Neither of them noticed that they were being watched, and Steve’s voice changed again, a little sad. “This isn’t about me.” _It’s about you, because you’re the only thing I have anymore._

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “I know, ‘cause you’ve got nothing to prove.” Steve squared his jaw. 

“Hey sarge!” The girls had probably been waiting outside, and had finally gotten bored. “Are we going dancing?” 

Bucky turned around, and spread his arms wide, “Yes we are,” He turned back to Steve, but he was backing away. He was pointing at Steve then, trying to go for the Stern-Beta, but really, it would never work on Steve. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” 

“How can I?” Steve smiled a little. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.” 

Bucky sighed and closed the space between them. “You’re a punk.” Firm arms closed around him, and Steve hugged back, pressing his face into Bucky’s neck. 

“Jerk.” Steve mumbled. He could feel Bucky’s warm breaths on his neck, and he clapped his hand on the Beta’s shoulder. “Be careful.” Not that Bucky had to be careful. 

Bucky backed away, and saluted to him before jogging lightly down the steps, and swept a girl under each arm. “C’mon girls, they’re playing our song.” 

Steve didn’t move until he was certain that Bucky and the girls had left. Right, he was going to _make_ them take him. 

The check over they did of him was pretty standard. Heart and respiration rate, blood pressure, temperature, a small blood sample, pheromone check—the doctor’s eyebrow’s shot up when he checked that one—plus height and weight. Steve hadn’t been strictly truthful when he put down his extensive list of allergies, lying about his asthma and his major issue with Omegas in heat, and when the doctor left, and he was buttoning his shirt back up, he glanced around and felt a moment of fleeting panic when he saw the sign that said ‘it is a punishable offence to falsify your medical details’. 

And then the Beta with the helmet marked _MP_ pushed the curtain aside and stood there at attention, staring at the far wall until another doctor walked in and dismissed him. 

The doctor wasn’t young, wore round glasses, and gave off a similar, flat scent to Bucky. So he was a Beta too. 

The doctor didn’t look at him for a long while; instead opting to read the clipboard he had in his hands—Steve’s medical file—and finally, after a long painstaking wait, looked up calmly. “So you want to go to overseas, and kill some Nazis?” Steve nearly flinched when the man spoke in a thick German accent. Weren’t they fighting the Germans? So what was this man doing here? 

“Excuse me?” 

“Dr Abraham Erskine. I represent the Strategic Scientific Reserve.” They shook hands, and Erskine flipped through Steve’s file a little more. 

“Steve Rogers.” He stood around for a moment, not quite sure what to say next, so asked the question that had been bugging him. “Where are you from?” 

“Queens, 73rd street, and Utopia Parkway.” He paused, as if to take in Steve’s reaction. “Before that, Germany. This troubles you?” 

Steve shrugged. It didn’t really bother him at all. Erskine wasn’t the first German he had met. “No.” 

“So where are _you_ from, Mr Rogers?” Erskine ran a finger down Steve’s file. “Is it New Haven? Or Paramus?” Oh goodness he had all of Steve’s files. “Five exams,” He held his hand up, fingers splayed, “in five different cities.” 

“Uhh… that may not be my file.” 

Erskine just spoke over him. “No, no. It’s not the five exams I’m interested in. It’s the five tries.” There was a difference in that? “But you didn’t answer my question. Do you want to kill Nazis?” He spoke a little slower then, spelling the question out. 

“Is this a test?” Steve couldn’t think to say much else, why else would the doctor be asking such a question of him? 

The man thought for a bit, and shrugged. “Mmm, yes.” 

“No.” Steve didn’t have to consider that answer on bit. Various things affected that decision, Bucky, his late mother, the guys at school who pushed him around just because he was smaller and weaker than them, and therefore supposedly subservient. “I don’t want to kill anyone. I just don’t like bullies. I don’t care where they’re from. And I want to protect my friends.” He made that plural even though Bucky was his only real friend. 

“Well,” Erskine nodded to himself a little. “There are already so many big Alphas fighting this war.” He looked down at Steve, lips quirked up in a grin. “Maybe what we need now is the little guy.” The doctor folded Steve’s file up. “I can offer you a chance.” Erskine pushed the curtain open, and walked out. Steve followed. “Only a chance.” 

Steve rubbed the tips of his fingers into his palms. He had been waiting for a chance for three months. “I’ll take it!” What was he supposed to do? Apologise? Change his mind? 

“Good.” Erskine picked up a stamp, inspected the bottom of it, and put it down. “So where is the little guy from?” He turned to Steve and looked over his glasses at the blond. “ _Actually_.” He turned back and picked up another stamp. 

Steve could only chuckle. “Brooklyn.” He said, unable to stop grinning. The doctor was giving off a very positive vibe. 

Erskine stamped something on the most recent application and handed it to Steve. “Congratulations, soldier.” 

Steve nearly choked when he saw the letters ‘1-A’ stamped on his application in bright red. 

“You need to come back here tomorrow at noon to leave for training.”

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He didn’t tell Bucky when the Beta finally got back to their apartment at some ungodly hour, Bucky would make him go back and resign, Steve knew it because Bucky considered _actually_ getting enlisted a stupid thing for Steve to do, and Bucky specifically said ‘don’t do anything stupid’. 

Steve didn’t have to listen to Bucky anyway. He outranked the Beta, and if he had to pull rank, he knew that Bucky would listen. 

Bucky let Steve curl himself around the Beta when Bucky finally got home, bury his nose in the thick hair, fingers dug tight into the already crinkled shirt that Bucky hadn’t changed out of. Steve could feel Bucky shifting to press his nose against the nearest of Steve’s glands—the one in his throat—rubbing it to release a few pheromones. 

Bucky’s breath sighed against his skin, warm and fluttery, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut against the room lit by the streetlamps outside, and the tears. He really didn’t know what he would do if Bucky never came back, if he just fell off the edge of the Earth, and didn’t return to their apartment. Would Steve have to find a new flat mate? But then that was wrought with dangers. He would have to find someone who could put up with his allergies and it wouldn’t be able to be an Omega because he hadn’t smelt an Omega on full heat before. It would probably kill him. 

“It’s going to be alright.” Bucky assured, but Steve could tell that he didn’t think that. Bucky’s scent was all over the place; hardly mixed at all with that of the two girls he had gone dancing with, and a little nervous, too strong for him to be entirely calm. That, and Bucky’s hands were shaking where they sat, one on Steve’s waist, the other folded between their bodies. 

Steve shucked down so he was level with Bucky, inhaling as much of the Beta’s scent as possible. 

After all these years, they hadn’t imprinted, or bonded, or even mated for that matter, but God Steve would be distraught if something happened to Bucky. 

To be certain, he was proud that Bucky was going to fight for America, for everyone he was leaving behind, including Steve, and sure, Steve liked to think that he was the only reason Bucky was going to fight, because it was as sure as hell that no one else would even consider Steve a good reason to fight. 

“Sure.” Steve tried to ladle as much sarcasm into his tone as he could, and when he opened his eyes, he could see Bucky’s smile. 

From there, there wasn’t much place they could go, well, there was sleeping, and Steve sure as hell wasn’t tired, too nervous for Bucky’s life, and excited that he finally got recruited, or there was—okay, Bucky could choose as well. 

At least it was his other option, Steve thought absently. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, and Bucky deftly plucked at the buttons on his shirt, starting at the collar. Steve tried to reciprocate the movements, strip Bucky of his shirt, but couldn’t steady his hands enough. Once his own shirt was gone, Bucky’s hands helped him, and then Steve was almost melting into the Beta’s warm chest, trying to prolong the moment as much as possible. 

He wasn’t permitted to do nothing for long, as Bucky pressed their lips together urgently, hardly letting Steve away for air. When they final broke apart, Steve’s bottom lip was swelling, and they were both panting, and Bucky was scraping his fingers through Steve’s hair, over his ears, down his shoulders, ribs, to pull Steve closer by his bony hips, fingers digging into either side of the base of his tail, and Steve gasped against Bucky’s lips. 

They shifted against each other, practiced, deliberate, _desperate_ , until Steve bit down, into Bucky’s left shoulder, to choke his moan, and Bucky stilled his hand between them, and curled tightly around Steve, tangling their legs together. 

Sleep didn’t take long after that.

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“Here.” Bucky tossed him a shirt the next morning. Steve, still dragging himself out of bed, didn’t question, just pulled the fabric over his head, and found sleeve holes. 

“This isn’t my shirt.” Steve finally mumbled when he realised that it was far too baggy to fit him. He got out of bed, managing to get his legs underneath himself, and stumbled over to Bucky. The hem nearly reached his knees, and the sleeves easily covered his hands. “I can’t go out in this.” 

“Why not?” Bucky turned and pressed a mug into Steve’s hands. 

Steve just glared at him, and bought the mug to his lips. Bucky placed a large hand on the top of Steve’s head and rubbed his ears. 

“Look, you’ve left your mark,” he shrugged his left shoulder, where the imprints that fitted Steve’s teeth exactly lay, “I wanted to leave mine.” 

Steve mumbled something, and buried his nose in the coffee before getting the rest of his clothes on. “What time is it?” 

“Oh-five-thirty.” Bucky was already dressed, and he watched with veiled amusement as Steve tried to dress as quickly as he could. Bucky had to be at the docks at six. Why was he waiting for Steve? He should’ve left by now. “Leave it on.” Bucky insisted when Steve went to change into a smaller shirt. “You look good in it.” 

Steve couldn’t help but smile a little, despite the despair gnawing at his stomach, he was about to lose his only friend to the war that had consumed the planet within a few months. 

At least he would be right on Bucky’s tail. 

Steve couldn’t eat anything, he felt a little sick, actually, but Bucky made himself a peanut butter sandwich and ate it as they ran to the tram. Bucky laughed at Steve when he had to double over and catch his breath after his twenty yard sprint to leap on the back of the tram, and Steve tried to kick him in retaliation. 

They weren’t late, but Bucky did have to throw Steve over his shoulder in order to be able to run there on time. Steve growled at him when he was let down, but any complaint he had was erased when Bucky thumbed the edge of his ear. 

“That’s cheating. You are cheating.” Steve jerked away, and huffed. He rubbed his arms firmly. It was cold, and really early in the morning, and there was no sun to break the frost. 

“Am not.” Bucky grabbed Steve’s wrist and pulled him along. “Come on, Dock 6.” 

The dock was cordoned off, only allowing military personal on the dock itself, but before the barricaded off section was a wide swath of people, seeing off their brave husbands and friends in the 107th. He didn’t complain when Bucky kept a hold of his wrist to help him through the crowd. 

They weren’t given much time to say goodbye, just a quick hug, a nuzzle, and a promise of safety and a safe return before Bucky had to hurry away, leaving Steve leaning on the wooden rail that stopped civilians spilling onto the dock, and as the boat departed, everyone already below decks, Steve wondered if he should have told Bucky that Erskine had allowed him to register for the army. 

He swallowed back his regrets along with his tears, and found himself in a conversation with a little old Beta lady as he walked back to the tram stop.

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When he got to the training facility, the very first thing he did was unpack his bag—too many books in there according the other people in his bunk area—and get changed into the tan military fatigues, before lining up outside. 

Before long, he was standing in a line that consisted of a few burly Alpha’s that tried to give him a hard time in the bunk room, a handful of Beta’s and three Omega’s. Steve adjusted his helmet, and made a conscious effort to breathe through his nose. One of the Omega’s was about three days after his heat, and really Steve couldn’t afford an asthma attack and the arousal that came whenever he could smell an Omega in heat. Okay, it was annoying to him, because really it didn’t seem to happen to anyone else. 

Just as they were being handed clipboards with some kind of release form in the event of their death or injury, a woman approached them, Steve thought, for a moment, his heart had leapt out of this throat. 

“Recruits! Attention!” She shouted, and this caused more than one of them to stiffen automatically, and all of them to stand at attention. “Gentlemen, I’m Agent Carter. I supervise all the operations for this division.” Steve couldn’t help but track her with his eyes. She was too far away for him to get a scent, but he, and everyone else, could hear her accent. 

“What’s with the accent, Queen Victoria?” Well, he was too polite to say anything, but apparently one of the other Alphas wasn’t. “I thought I was signing up for the US army.” 

“What’s your name, soldier?” She didn’t even flinch; probably used to this kind of treatment. She walked over to the offending Alpha, shorter than him by a few inches, but somehow she let off a presence to match his. 

“Gilmore Hodge, Your Majesty.” He puffed himself up, tilting his head to make himself even taller, exerting an Alpha’s presence—clearly used to using his—to try to undermine her. 

It didn’t work. “Step forwards, Hodge.” 

Hodge looked around, waggled his eyebrows at the Beta next to him, but obeyed. His nostrils flared when he stepped into her personal space, and he smirked. “Put your right foot forwards.” 

Hodge did so. “We gonna wrestle?” He asked, all cocky, “Cause I got a few moves I know you’ll like.” He winked and jerked his head, and Agent Carter balled her fists up, but settled for glaring at him. “Omega.” Oka-ay that wasn’t expected, but Steve suddenly liked Agent Carter a hell of a lot more. Because he always respected an Omega that could take care of themselves. Like his mother. 

Carter didn’t even hesitate, and her fist knocked Hodge flat on his back and she shifted her jaw, put her hair back into place, and Steve pretty much fell in love on the spot, after biting his tongue to stop himself from sniggering with the rest of the recruits. 

“Carter!” 

Agent Carter snapped to attention instantly, her hands folding behind her back, precisely above her neatly groomed tail, just as she spun on her heel to face the man who called. “Colonel Phillips!” There was a hint of surprise in her voice. 

Everything about Colonel Phillips translated to Alpha in Steve's mind, from his haircut to the confident way he walked, even with a limp. He stopped by Agent Carter’s side, and she turned to face the recruits again. Phillips surveyed the man on the ground. “I can see you are breaking in the new recruits, that’s good.” He paused, almost as if to sigh. “Get your ass up out of that dirt and stand in that line until someone tells you otherwise.” Hodge scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, and stood tall back in his place, nose bloody, and shouted; “Yes sir!” Clearly, he respected an Alpha far more than an Omega. Steve’s ears flattened just a little under his helmet. He just thought that rude and inconsiderate. 

Phillips scrunched his nose up a little in disdain, and then continued. “General Patton, has said, that wars are fought with weapons, but they are won by men.” He turned around, and started walking back down the line of soldiers. “We are going to win this war because we have the best men.” He stopped then, his eye caught by Steve. “And because they are going to get better.” He glanced away, at Erskine, who just smiled in his smug manner, and didn’t even look away from Steve. “ _Much better._ ” Steve kept his eyes straight forwards, at the tree across the yard. He was going to be the best soldier he could be. Even if his helmet slid around on his head when he turned to look somewhere. “The Strategic Scientific Reserve, has an allied effort of the best minds of the three worlds. Our goal; to create the best army in history.” 

Steve resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. Good luck making a better army than the Spartan soldiers, or even, really despite the jokes, the French artillery. 

Oh, and Phillips tended to pause at the least expected moments. It was rather irritating. “But, the army will star one man. At the end of this week, we will choose that man. He will be the first, in a new breed of super-soldiers. And they, will personally escort, Adolf Hitler to the gates of hell.”

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That week of training was hell. Steve was constantly on the edge of asthma, and at the complete mercy of the other Alphas in his squadron. 

He couldn’t climb the ropes, could hardly crawl through the mud, and his effort was halted when Hodge kicked in one of the rails that held up the wire he was crawling under. He was completely stuck, and had to endure the Beta overseeing that day’s training shouting at him because he got mud on the butt of the rifle he was carrying before he was let out. 

Today was not his day. 

Actually, it wasn’t his week. 

On the fourth day, they went for a run. It was about thirty-two degrees (JFC 90˚F), and so humid. They were constantly shouted at, told to ‘run faster, double-time!’ Steve was actually in risk of a very severe asthma attack (When wasn’t he, really?), and was entirely convinced that his lungs were about to give up on him when the party was called to a halt. He managed to stumble a little closer to his squadron. 

The Beta overseeing their weeks’ training pointed to a tall white flag post. “That flag, means that we’re only at the half way point.” Steve just leant on his knees and drew in as much air as he could until he felt that he wasn’t about to die. “First man to bring me that flag gets a ride back with Agent Carter!” 

Of course, this offer sent every man, except Steve, including the Omegas (except they didn’t get far), running to the post to climb it and fetch the flag. Every Alpha got a chance, and a few of the Beta’s got to have their shot at climbing the flag pole, which was probably greased, and they were encouraged by the shout of ‘no one’s gotten that flag in seventeen years!’, before the Beta in command shouted at them to fall in. 

Steve ignored him. Not because he was an Alpha and felt that he didn’t have to listen to a Beta, but because he knew he could get the flag. 

He walked up to the base of the post, ignored the specific shout of ‘Rogers! I said _fall in_!’, and squatted to shimmy out the peg that held the pole in its stand. The pole squeaked as it slipped from the metal bracket that held it upright, and crashed to the ground, bouncing once, before coming to rest against the dry grass. He tossed the peg aside and walked over to the flag to retrieve it. 

Who said Alphas were all brawn? 

He handed the flag to the Beta in command. “Thank you, sir.” He said quietly, and then stepped into the idling jeep, vaguely aware of Agent Carter, who was twisted in her seat, pencil tucked behind her ear where she had left it, and he could’ve sworn she was trying not to smile. She turned in her seat the other way, glanced at Steve, and turned to face the front again, and Steve sank into the jeep’s back seat gratefully.

**Akdgjlqervhrgve THer'es supposed to be a bigger paragraph gap here but AO3's HTML is being a jerk**

“Faster ladies, come _on_.” Whilst she was gorgeous and had the ability to knock a proud Alpha on his back, Carter was also a slave driver and knew just what to say to make all of them, Steve included, bristle angrily. “My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul.” 

Really, Steve couldn’t quite understand why he was being expected to match the rest of his squad push-up for push-up. He was about half the weight of the next heaviest one, and to date, he hadn’t been able to do five push-ups on his knees without triggering his asthma, but _damn_ he was going to die trying. 

Because Erskine had offered him that chance, and he wasn’t backing down. 

“ _Move it!_ ” she shouted, and Steve locked his arms so he wouldn’t collapse. He got in two more push-ups in before they were ordered to their feet. Steve caught a glimpse of Erskine and Phillips talking by one of the jeeps. “Jumping jacks.” Carter called. Steve squeezed his eyes shut and got to work. Apparently they weren’t fast enough. They never were. “Move it, girls.” She ordered. 

Steve wasn’t entirely sure how much time passed before Colonel Phillips suddenly yelled ‘Grenade!’. Steve’s eyes shot open immediately, and he saw the black ball-like object before Hodge even had the time to shout ‘Move!’ 

Steve moved, all right. 

When everyone else scattered, Steve pretty much threw himself to the ground, scrambling to cover the grenade with his body. He might be skinny, but even his body must be enough to dampen the blast and save everyone else in the vicinity, including Carter. Speaking of which… 

Steve waved his arm when he saw Carter’s feet approaching, and shouted at her to get away, get to cover! Because it was his duty as an Alpha to protect everyone else, and he didn’t have the right to do any less than that. 

When the grenade didn’t explode, he slowly unwound himself and propped himself up on his elbows. Erskine was giving Phillips a look, and Steve hesitantly spoke. “Is this a test?” 

Phillips said something and walked off, and the smile that Erskine shot Steve said; _yes, but you pass._

**Akdgjlqervhrgve THer'es supposed to be a bigger paragraph gap here but AO3's HTML is being a jerk**

The adrenaline that came with leaping on a grenade didn’t dissipate easily, so he found himself sitting on his bunk reading, after the other recruits had been shipped out, he had been left behind, he was that chosen super-soldier. He was a little freaked out, too. Just a little. 

Really, how were they going to turn him into a super-soldier? He had been given a brief overview of the procedure, and it involved needles and science and he had understood about one in three words. 

He was lucky, when Erskine knocked on his door. “May I?’ He asked for permission to enter, even though he probably outranked Steve in military terms, if not biologically. 

“Yeah.” Steve set his book down, and twisted to watch Erskine approach him. 

“Can’t sleep?” Erskine unfolded the next bed, and sat. 

“Got the jitters, I guess.” 

The scientist chuckled. “Me too.” Whether it was that confession, or the Beta’s reassuring, familiar scent, Steve would never know, but a little bit of the tension drained from his shoulders. 

“Can I ask you a question?” There was something that had been bugging him. 

“Just one.” Erskine held up a single finger. 

Steve didn’t ask his question immediately, trying to think of a more eloquent manner in which to ask it, but couldn’t find one. “Why me?” 

The German sighed a slight laugh. “I suppose that is the only question that matters.” He rolled something over in his hands—a bottle. In the dim light, Steve could just make out the word ‘Schnapps’, printed across the label. “This is from Augsburg, my city.” Erskine answered Steve’s curious look. “So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own.” He stated this simply, calmly, and Steve felt compelled to listen. He might have been soothed just a little by the accent. “After the last war, my people struggled, for _weeks_.” The bottle was set down. “So, then Hitler comes along, marching and the big show, and the flags, and the…” he waved his hands a little, indicating extravagance. “And the… and he, he hears of me, my work, and he finds me, and he says you.” Erskine pointed at Steve, an ugly, aggressive emotion flickering across his face. “You will make us strong. Well,” the scientist relaxed a little, and shook his head. “I am not interested. So he sends the head of Hydra, his research division, a brilliant Alpha scientist by the name of Johann Schmidt.” Steve let his eyes slid partially shut; content to listen to Erskine’s story. “Now, Schmidt is a member of the inner circle. He is ambitious; he and Hitler share a passion for a cult power, and Teutonic myth. Hitler uses his fantasies to inspire his followers, but for Schmidt, it is not fantasy. With him, it is real. He has become convinced that there is a great power hidden in the earth, left here by the Gods, waiting to be seised by a superior man. So, he hears about my formula, and what it can do. He cannot resist. Schmidt must become that superior man.” 

Steve felt a quirk of interest at that. “Did it make him stronger?” 

“Ja,” Erskine half-shrugged, and tilted his head from side to side slightly. “But there were other… effects. The serum was not ready, but more importantly, the man.” 

Steve’s brow pinched slightly in the middle. What would the man have to do with the serum? 

“You see, the serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great, bad? Becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power, but a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows, compassion.” 

Umm… was that supposed to be a compliment or not? “Thanks… I think.” 

Erskine gestured to something by Steve’s elbow. “Get the…” Steve turned to see two glasses, one inside the other. He grabbed them, and Erskine picked up the bottle. “Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing.” He unstoppered the bottle of alcohol, and Steve unstacked the glasses. “That you stay who you are. 

Not a perfect Alpha, but a _good man._ ” He poured two careful measures and pressed the cork back into the neck of the bottle, and set it aside. 

Steve handed a glass to the scientist and sighed heavily. “To the little guys.” He raised his glass, and Erskine touched it to his own. He had the glass at his lips when Erskine grabbed his wrist. 

“No! Wait, wait! What am I doing?” He took the glass off Steve. “You have procedure tomorrow. No fluids.” 

“Alright,” Steve shrugged, “we’ll drink it after.” 

Erskine looked at him as if he had gone mad, and poured one glass into the other. “No, I don’t have procedure tomorrow. _Drink it after…_ ” he muttered. “I’ll drink it now.” 

Steve couldn’t help but smile, and the Beta downed the two shots in one gulp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been two months and one day since the unfortunate happenings described in the previous chapter. I'm sorry I took so long, but here it is! I would like to thank you all again, for your kind words, and I would like all of you to know that you really helped me get through a tough time, and I would also like you all to know that I have no school now, and that my inbox is open, both here and on Tumblr (lispetsketches.tumblr.com) in case any of you need to talk about anything that might be plaguing you. I have all the time in the world, and I really don't mind.  
> As it is, I apologise for the amount of movie plot in this chapter and the next. I can't help it, as everything happens so quickly in the movie, and I refuse to change the plot. Also every time I read over it to Beta (haha), I couldn't help but read Erskine's part out in his accent because I love it.  
> The next chapter will be out before the 25th, (meaning that I've actually written it, and beta'd it, but I am writing the chapter afterwards, just in case I have a writer's block so I have a back-up plan)  
> Also I'm being awful to everyone and writing a Thorki fic, that will be truly terrible and gut-wrenching and tear-inducing. Really. I'm awful. But please, I have two questions so I can better understand the needs of Thorki shippers out there, because I know what I like, but I don't know what you like.  
> 1) Do you prefer the pairing to be platonic or romantic/sexual  
> 2) Do you think Loki deserves a happy ending after everything he did (BTW, he doesn't regret it, and he never will. He thought what he was doing is right)  
> 3) (I lied) are you happy with a temporary Steve/Loki? Even if it's more hurt/comfort than sex.  
> ALSO THE GUY I HAVE LIKED FOREVER AGREED TO GO OUT WITH ME JUST AN HOUR AGO I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD ALL KNOW THIS BECAUSE I AM TOO EXCITED TO BE RATIONAL  
> It doesn't help that he's my Sempai.


	4. You Just Got Promoted.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Son, do you want to serve your country, on the most important battlefield of the war?”  
> Steve stopped, and nodded. “Sir, that’s all I want.”  
> The senator took his hand and shook it firmly. “Then congratulations, soldier. You just got promoted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I am sorry for the bad formatting. the HTML seems to hate me. There is supposed to be a larger gap just before it says '1942', and another one just before Steve asks them if they've taken enough blood.

Bucky could see it easily, the letter that would be sent home, to America, to _Steve_. 

>   
>  _To whom it may concern._   
>  _We bitterly regret to report that Sargent James Barnes, after a series of unfortunate events, has been declared killed in action._   
>  _Our greatest condolences._   
> 

Beautiful. 

Short and sweet, just enough for Steve to cry over. 

There is shouting in German, enough to snap him out of his musings. So, back for round oh God Bucky’s forgotten. 

He hurts, aches, burns. But he’s proud. He hasn’t broken yet. 

They’ve drugged him, beaten him, cut him, burnt him, scarred him in every way possible, but he hasn’t broken yet. He hasn’t betrayed his country, hasn’t betrayed Steve. And he knows he won’t. 

They turn him over and strap him back down so his bare chest is pressed against the freezing metal of the table—he’s been lying against it for too long and it hasn’t warmed up yet—and they cut his tail off slowly, about a quarter inch at a time. He screams and cries and can’t think of anything being more painful until he’s left with half a tail, and they scrape the fur and skin off with the flat of the knife and rub salt into the open flesh. 

He can’t scream anymore.

1942 

Steve hadn’t ever felt the need to impress anyone before. He never had to try with Bucky, and no one else had shown enough interest for him to want to make anyone else feel anything but contempt or pity for him. But that was before he was shoved in the back seat of a car, with only Agent Carter for company. Hodge’s assessment of her had been correct. She was indeed an Omega, and he smoothed the fur on his ears when he removed his hat politely. 

He didn’t dare look at her. Women, well, Omegas in general weren’t his forte. No, he was better at sitting in the corner, and watching twitchily as Bucky did all the talking. 

The neighbourhood they were driving though was familiar to Steve. It was a few blocks from where he had lived with his mother before she died. And why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut right now? 

He put it down to nerves. “Hey, I know this neighbourhood.” He had his nose plastered to the window of the automobile, ears flicking back and forth. It wasn’t often he got to travel in an automobile, and he was kind of enjoying it, even if it was roasting hot in the black car. “I got beat up in that alley. And that parking lot… and… behind that diner…” his voice trailed off towards the end, and his ears burnt with heat. He knew how stupid he sounded, but he couldn’t stop the words. 

“Did you have something against running away?” Carter replied. She actually spoke to him. He was glad he was sitting on his tail. He probably wouldn’t be able to contain it properly if he weren’t. 

He shook his head. “If you start running, they’ll never let you stop.” He turned back to the window and watched a herd of scruffy looking children run past with sticks. “If you stand up, push back… can’t say no forever, right?” He glanced back at Carter for her opinion. 

“I know a little of what that’s like. To have every door shut in your face.” Steve wasn’t stupid. He could read between the lines there. She had fought tooth and nail for her current job, because she was supposed to be inferior. She got what she wanted, but she also got the misogynistic jerks that came with the military. 

The next words out of Steve’s mouth ran away from him before he could stop them. “I guess I just don’t know why you’d want to join the army if you’re such a beautiful Omega,” he floundered and tried to correct himself after realising what he said. “Uhh… beauti—woman, uhh… agent, not an Omega. You are beautiful…” 

Carter turned to look at him, something akin to amusement in her eye, but Steve could’ve been imagining that because she was otherwise appearing rather stern. “You have no idea how to talk to an Omega, do you?” 

Steve chuckled quietly to himself. “I think this is the longest conversation I’ve had with one.” He sighed and fidgeted with his cap. “Omegas aren’t exactly lining up to dance with the Alpha they might step on.” 

“You must’ve danced.” Carter sounded disbelieving. 

“No.” He shrugged. “Asking an Omega to dance always seemed so terrifying. And the past few years it just… it didn’t seem to matter so much.” Not with college. 

Not when he had Bucky willing to take him in his arms when necessary. “I figured I’d wait.” Besides, he didn’t really mind a great deal. There still were the really desperate Omegas who slunk around his peripheries anyway, usually older or ill. Bucky always ushered him away before anything happened though. 

“For what?” Carter didn’t sound like she was mocking him at all. 

Steve nearly said several things then; ‘You’ was one of them, then ‘I’m not waiting, my Beta just deported last week.’ Was the second, but he settled for; “The right partner.” Steve tried not to think about how sentimental that sounded, and focused more on how the automobile was pulling over, and he had to get out now. 

He held the door open for Carter, and closed it behind her, and followed her into the antique store. 

Carter spoke to the shopkeeper, said something cryptic about umbrellas, and then she was ushering him into the backroom where there was a bookcase. 

The bookcase opened away as if it were a door, and Steve’s jaw nearly dropped open when he saw the corridor that it was hiding. They walked along that corridor, people parting for them along the way, and Steve kept his eyes forwards, locked on the double doors at the far end. They went through those doors, too, and Steve found himself overlooking a large chamber, where there was a bench and a rather complicated and bulky machine set up. He swallowed, and Carter looked at him as if expecting something, or as if reappraising him, and before he could say anything, she turned to the right and alighted down the stairs. 

He realised that all activity in the room had ceased the moment he stepped up to the railing, and blushed, before jogging to catch up to Agent Carter. 

Erskine was waiting for him in the centre of the room, by the odd machine and bench. He was greeted, and whilst he was talking to Erskine, there was a bright flash of a camera, and Erskine turned to glare at the Omega in charge of the camera. It vanished. 

“You need to take off your shirt, your tie, and your cap, and lie down.” Erskine turned away, and Steve fumbled with his clothes before stepping up to lie on the padded bench. “Comfortable?” Erskine shifted his arms a little so they weren’t so near the edge of the bench. 

“It’s a little big.” Steve had his head where it was supposed to be, near the top of the bench, but there was no way his feet reached the metal plate at the base of it. Erskine chuckled. “Did you save any of that schnapps?” He probably wouldn’t drink the alcohol, but it was a nice sentiment. 

Erskine looked slightly guilty. “Not as much as I should have.” He glanced away, and then back. “Sorry, next time maybe. Mr Stark?” Erskine backed away, and bent to fiddle with a wire. “How are your levels?” 

Steve couldn’t stop himself from looking when Howard Stark himself walked over, looking just as in control as he did at the expo. Steve swallowed. “Levels are at 100%. We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn,” he was pretty much standing over Steve now. There was a nurse strapping him to the bench, but he couldn’t really focus on that, “but we are ready…” He glanced down the length of Steve’s body, and tucked the end of Steve’s tail under his leg. “As we’ll ever be.” 

Well wasn’t that a confidence booster. 

“Agent Carter, don’t you think you’d be more uncomfortable upstairs?” Erskine pointed to the observation booth upstairs when he asked Agent Carter this. 

Her gaze darted to Steve, now shirtless, and her ears twitched minutely, “Yes, thank you.” As she was making her way back upstairs, she glanced back at Steve and shrugged helplessly and gave him a small, encouraging smile. Steve tried to smile back. 

He looked back at the roof, and Erskine found a microphone and addressed the men in the observation booth. Steve couldn’t hear what he was saying, and the nurse that strapped him to the bench moved two metal arms, positioning them on his chest. On either side of him, more nurses were inserting vials of a blue liquid, Erskine’s serum, into the designed holes in the machine. Steve kept staring at the fluorescent lights above him. This was it. No more little Steve from Brooklyn, right? Erskine returned just in time to watch the first nurse press a needle into Steve’s arm. Steve hissed and forced himself to hold still. The tight, cold pinch of the injection was rapid, and dispersed quickly. Maybe that was it. 

“That wasn’t so bad.” 

“That was penicillin.” 

He turned his head to look sharply at Erskine, who shrugged and looked away. 

“Serum infusion. Beginning in five, four,” time seemed to drag on, and Steve felt pinches all over his arms and legs when the brackets were pressed into place. “Three, two…” The metal arms on his chest seemed to grow needles, and Steve bit his tongue. He could do this. 

Erskine had offered him a chance, he took it, and now he was going to reap the benefits of sticking to his choice. He could cope with a little pain. 

Erskine put his hand in Steve’s hair for comfort. “One.” He looked away from Steve, and there was an icy rush through his limbs, followed by a course of intense heat. He clenched his eyes shut against it, and grit his teeth. Nothing he could do to stop it now. It was too late. He would just have to put up with it. When the serum reached his heart and lungs, his eyes shot open and he gasped. Everything was suddenly so _bright_

“Now Mr Stark.” 

Stark did something, and the bench Steve was lying on moved, shifting him so he slid down to stand on the plate at the bottom of the bench. The odd metal parts shifted too, moving to enclose him in the machine. He took a deep breath, and it came easier than ever before. 

There was three consecutive taps on the outside of the case, the noise amplified from the inside. “Steven? Can you hear me?” 

He didn’t think before he replied, just said the first thing that came to his mind. “It’s probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?” 

“We will proceed.” Was the last thing he heard. 

The next thing he knew, the inside of the box was glowing, but the light didn’t just hit his skin and bounce off. It seemed to reach into him, right to his bones and his organs, pulling them around. It wasn’t so bad at first, but when he had to close his eyes against the light, and the movement in his body became too much, he couldn’t stop the yell that was pulled from his throat. 

He could hear Erskine yelling his name, and pounding against the metal casing, shouting for the process to stop, and he dug his nails into the palm of his hand. They couldn’t stop now, he was so close. “No!” He screamed. He was certain that Erskine could hear him. “Don’t! I can do this!” 

The light intensified from there, and the pain almost seemed to recede, or reach a plateau, or his body was growing and becoming more tolerant to pain. There was a loud crackling sound, and Steve’s ears flattened into his hair, and the light vanished entirely. He didn’t quite trust himself to open his eyes. “Mr Stark!” 

He could hear the hiss of the metal box as it slid open, and the following intake of breath from everyone in the room when they saw him. He still hadn’t opened his eyes yet. His body felt different, stronger, but he hadn’t moved yet, he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, and he didn’t want to open his eyes and be disappointed if nothing changed. He felt two hands, one on his shoulder, the other on his wrist, and he cracked his eyes open to see the ground as Erskine guided him out of the machine. It seemed so far away. 

Howard Stark was on his other side, and between the two scientists, Steve was standing on the cool concrete. 

“We did it.” He couldn’t help but smile. Yes, his body was definitely bigger, stronger too. He couldn’t feel the pull of his lungs anymore from his asthma; his joints didn’t creak when he moved. He had become the super-soldier. 

“Yes, yeah, yes. I think we did.” Erskine let him go, and Steve could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on him. 

Carter was suddenly standing in front of him, breathing a little heavier than normal. She looked him up and down. “How do you feel?” 

He looked around, now standing on his own. He towered over everyone in the vicinity. “Taller.” 

She reached out as if to press her fingers to his chest, but thought better and took the shirt that a nurse offered, and bunched it up to shove over his head. He stooped to make it easier for her, and she rubbed his ears briefly on the way past. “You look taller.” 

He chuckled. 

“My name’s Peggy, by the way.” She looked away, and then back again. “Just… just thought you should know.” She was forced quiet when someone came up to congratulate him. He smiled, (even the muscles in his face felt weird), and shook the man’s hand. 

“Thank you, sir.” 

When the ball of fire ripped the observation booth to pieces, Steve didn’t hesitate to push Peggy behind his back to protect her. He was busy making sure that everyone around him was fine when the gunshot rang out. 

He had always read books where it said that time seemed to slow, and scoffed. It couldn’t happen could it? Some time in his future, someone would explain it to him, how all the synapses in his brain fire at once, and he can just think faster, but when he turned, and saw Erskine sliding to the floor, it happened so slowly, and he thought for a split second that it was a side effect of the serum. He was at Erskine’s side in a flash, crouching over the Beta, fingers already working to get to the bullet holes, stem the bleeding, _anything_. Erskine coughed, didn’t say anything, and Steve lowered him back to the concrete gently. It seemed to take all of the scientist’s strength to lift his right arm and poke Steve in the chest. Words echoed through his mind. _Not a perfect Alpha, but a good. Man._

He looked up, his jaw clenched, just in time to see Peggy running from the room, chasing the man who shot, and killed, Erskine. Red tinted his vision, and he followed. 

He bounded over the old lady who had let them through the antique shop, also shot, and didn’t notice the glass shards, and could only see how Peggy was about to get hit by a taxi, and didn’t hesitate to tackle her out of the way. He wasn’t sure how he managed to roll in the air so he hit the pavement first, but it worked. Some of the anger seeped away when he realised that he just saved Peggy’s life. 

“I had him!” She shouted angrily. Steve nearly flinched under her wrath and scrambled to his feet with an apology so he could follow the man. 

He flew along the road, and faltered when his brain couldn’t match up with how effortlessly he was running, his own bare feet propelling him along the road, as fast as the automobiles either side of him. He lost control around a corner, and crashed through a window, but after that he got the knack of it—he had always been a quick learner—and all thoughts of how amazing his body was, how limitless it felt, were gone from his mind in favour of chasing that yellow taxi. He fell behind a little, and used his innate knowledge of this part of Brooklyn to devise a shortcut, leaping easily over a fence that was as tall as he was now, and then another shortcut on top of the cars, bouncing from roof to roof, and finally flat on his stomach on the taxi’s top. The bullets fired through the roof somehow, miraculously, missed him, and the car took the next corner too fast, and the whole vehicle rolled. 

Steve’s body moved without him having to tell it what to do, springing fluidly from the metal roof and rolling when he hit the ground, and he could hardly _feel_ the ground, as if it were made of foam. He was on his feet in a flash, but he heard the crack of the pistol that the man he was chasing had, and he ducked away. In between shots, he ran to the door of the taxi, shorn clean off, and lifted it, fingers digging into the internal padding, to make a rudimentary shield. Two shots hit the door, both of the impacts jarring his arms, and the second shot went right through, and there was fire in his ribs. The man was running towards a group of children then, and grabbed one, ripping the young boy away from the group. Steve used the corner of the building to shield himself from the next bullet, and then a large steel buoy to hide from the next. When no more shots came, he sprinted out from his hiding place and in pursuit of the man, and when he skidded around the corner, he saw that they were at the docks. The man had the gun pointed at the child, and Steve skidded to a halt. 

“Don’t!” was the only thing he could think to say. The man couldn’t just kill a child! The gun was pointed at him instead, but it only clicked when the trigger was pulled. Out of ammunition. The child was picked up, and just as Steve was shouting not to do it, the child was thrown into the water. 

He forgot his chase and ran to the water’s edge, fully prepared to throw himself into the water to save the child. The kid was treading water, and waved him on. “Go get him! I can swim!” Smarmy little bugger. 

Steve only had to run another fifty or so meters until he could see the strange, black vehicle disappearing into the water, and Steve didn’t hesitate to dive in after it, glad for a split second that he hadn’t been wearing shoes. He pushed through the water easily, and it took almost no effort to put his fist through the glass roof of the submarine, and he ripped the door off, and actually managed to throw the man from the water. He was on the docks in a moment too, and when the man tried to get up, he didn’t stop himself from jerking his knee up into the man’s face. 

“Who are you?” He crouched and gripped the man’s sopping wet jacket, pulling him up from the ground. 

“The first of many.” The accent wasn’t disguised, and Steve felt horrified that a German would kill one of his own brethren. “Cut off one head,” he knocked a tooth out with his tongue and bit down on it before Steve could stop him, “and two more shall take its place.” Foam started to form at the edges of the German’s lips, and he started shuddering. “Heil Hydra!” 

Steve let the man go when he slumped, and stood. Now that the chase was over, gone along with his anger, he could only stand there and look around, his hands shaking slightly. He looked down at them, large and _strong_ , and realised what he had just done. 

He had run several kilometres and then dived into the bay to punch his way into a submarine, and his hands were only shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush. 

If only Bucky could see him now.

He didn’t flinch when the needle broke his skin, he just stared out of the window, out over the workshop where Howard (the Stark had insisted) was piecing apart the submarine that he had so gracelessly smashed two days ago. When the needle was finally drawn from his arm, he could swear that the nurse took several pints of his blood, he pressed a piece of gauze to the small hole. 

“Think you’ve got enough?” He looked away from the factory below and turned to Peggy instead. 

“Any hope of reproducing the program is locked in your genetic code.” She flipped all of the sheets of paper on her clipboard back into place, and pressed them to her chest. “Without Dr Erskine, it will take years.” 

Steve sighed, and rolled his sleeve down. “He deserved more than this.” 

Peggy placed her hand on his arm, being careful to miss where the needle had pulled blood from him. “If it could work only once, he would be proud it was you.” He looked at Peggy, and saw that she was dead serious, and then looked away and pressed his thumb into the centre of the gauze and it hardly hurt. 

Apparently his hearing had been greatly enhanced by the serum, too, not just his muscled, because he could hear the argument downstairs. 

“Colonel, my committee is demanding answers.” 

“Good,” Steve furrowed his brow. That was Phillips. “How about we start with how a German spy got a ride to my secret installation in your car.” Steve stood in time to see Phillips and two other men come to a halt where Howard was working. “What have we got here?” 

Peggy opened the door, and he followed her out into the workshop. They stopped on the balcony. 

“Speaking modestly, I’m the best mechanical engineer in this country.” Steve grinned at Howard’s words. From what he had come to understand, Howard wasn’t a very modest person. “But I don’t know what’s inside this thing, or how it works. We’re not even close to this technology.” The Alpha engineer shrugged and turned back to his work. 

“Then who is?” One of the other men, the one who had been demanding answers, rounded on Colonel Phillips. 

“Hydra.” Phillips was gruff and short. “I’m sure you’re been reading our briefings, senator.” Steve wasn’t sure of he was being sarcastic, or intoning that the senator actually didn’t read the briefings. 

“I’m on a number of committees, _colonel_ ” The senator bit back. Steve could see the tension rising in the line of the senator’s body, short fur on his tail standing on end. 

Peggy waved for him to follow, and he did. “Hydra is the Nazi deep science division, led by Johann Schmidt, but he has much bigger ambitions.” By the time she had finished, she and Steve were standing in front of the senator and Phillips. 

Phillips nodded in agreement. “Hydra’s practically a cult. They worship Schmidt, they think he’s invincible.” 

The senator was the next to speak. “So what are you going to do about it?” 

Phillips didn’t do anything for a second, as if contemplating whether or not to tell the senator, but answered. “Spoke to the president this morning. As of today, the SSR has been retasked.” 

Peggy tensed. “Colonel? 

The colonel directly addressed Peggy now. “We are taking the fight to Hydra. Pack your bags, Agent Carter. You too, Stark. We’re flying to London tonight.” 

Steve waited to be told to pack too, but wasn’t. Yeah, no. He was going to capture Schmidt, for several reasons, he was probably the man who ordered Erskine to be killed, and if what Erskine had told him, Schmidt was insane and dangerous, and _very_ powerful. Probably to the point where the only person who might stand a chance at him head on was Steve. “Sir, if you’re going after Schmidt I want in.” 

Phillips seemed surprised that he had the gall to speak up. “You’re an experiment, you’re going to Alamogordo.” 

“The serum worked.” 

Phillips stepped in close to lower his voice. “I asked for an army, and all I got was you.” Steve bit his lip to stop himself from growling. Phillips stepped away, and spoke slightly louder. “You are not enough.” He left. 

Steve stood there and fumed silently, Peggy standing just behind him. One of the senators approached. He was perhaps as old as Phillips, and carried little scent. Beta. “With all due respect to the colonel, I think he may be missing the point.” He put a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and turned him around so Peggy couldn’t hear what was being said. “I’ve seen you in action Steve, but more importantly, the country’s seen it.” He glanced at the other man and waved. The day’s newspaper was handed to Steve. He swallowed when he saw himself, holding the taxi door, splashed across the front. “The enlistment lines have been around the block since this hit the news stand. 

“You don’t take a soldier, a symbol like that, and hide him in a lab.” The hand on his back was pushing slightly, and he allowed himself to walk along with the senator a bit. “Son, do you want to serve your country, on the most important battlefield of the war?” 

Steve stopped, and nodded. “Sir, that’s all I want.” 

The senator took his hand and shook it firmly. “Then congratulations, soldier. You just got promoted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weoighwqripbue HOW COULD I DO THAT TO BUCKY ;A;
> 
> I am so sorry. There is even more plot in this chapter.


	5. The Star Spangled Man with a Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, for the longest time I dreamed about… coming overseas, and being on the front lines, serving my country.” He paused, and bit the inside of his lip. “I finally get everything I wanted, and I’m wearing tights.” Peggy reached out and put her fingers in his hair, and he leant into the touch. He closed his eyes for a moment, and over the pounding rain, he could hear people yelling, and an automobile’s horn. He looked over at where the sound was coming from. “They look like they’ve been through hell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christmas Special, motherfuckers.  
> Last time I apologise for so much plot. I swear. At least until we get to the Avengers plot line.  
> ahaha oh dear.  
> I hope you enjoy, and that none of you have a cold/throat infection like I do.  
> It's the middle of summer for goodness sakes ;A;

1943

When he had been told what he was going to do for the war effort, Steve nearly turned around and walked out of Senator Brandt’s office, but he stuck around for long enough to listen to the rest of the sentence, then he grudgingly agreed to dress up in a poor mock-up of the American flag, and walk on stage. 

Because it would get him to Bucky quicker. 

He got to the point where he was slightly itchy because the outfit he was required to wear was made of wool, and he was holding a steel shield that was painted to match what he was wearing, before he began to doubt his choice. He was never good with crowds. 

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

He could hardly listen to the man who was making sure that his clothes were straight. He caught the last half of the sentence though… “Bing, bang, boom, you’re an American Hero.”

He adjusted his grip on the shield, and pulled the hood of the clothing over his head. “This is not how I pictured getting there.” Something a little less embarrassing would be nice. Like shooting at someone.

He managed to catch the next sentence. “The senator’s got a lot of pull up on the hill. If you pull this, you’ll be leading your own platoon in no time.” There was one last yank on his uniform, and he was being pushed towards the curtain, the first bars of the music started. “Go, go!” He stumbled out onto stage. 

It was then that he realised that he was in way over his head.

Basically, he had to advertise defence bonds, not the most prestigious thing that he could be doing, but as he went from state to state, and gained confidence, and his routine gained both popularity and extravagance, bond sales increased in each state. Sure, it had him doing something, and he constantly amazed himself with the things he could do, like pick up an entire motorbike with three of the tour girls sitting on it, _with ease_ , and he met so many people, so many Omegas, who looked at him, and he could see in their eyes that they were assessing their chances of becoming his mate, and the USO girls were an amazing bunch, mostly Betas, and bonded Omegas, but he felt that he could be doing _more_.

The USO girls taught him a lot, a lot of silly little things that he appreciated anyway, like how to do cartwheels and handstands, and how to improve his flexibility. One of them showed him that she could tie a knot in a cherry stem with her tongue, (and naturally, the reference went completely over his head), and he learnt how to do that, too.

His chance to do more came when he got flown out to Italy.

His performance flunked, and he spent the rest of the day sitting on the wooden steps of the stage, drawing in the notebook that he had bought with him from Brooklyn. It was so far, filled with little doodles, people he met along the way, they all stuck in his mind, but the ones that came to the forefront, the little girl who he had picked up to hold her above the heads of the crowd so she could find her mother, the old WWI veteran who was missing his right leg from the knee down. His pencil scratched into the paper in the dome-shape of an umbrella—a recent addition to this particular drawing, because it just started bucketing down with rain. He had long since pressed his ears to his skull to stop water dripping into them, and tucked his tail between his legs for warmth. He was so engrossed with his drawing that he didn’t notice Peggy until she was standing over him. 

“Hello Steve.”

“Hi.” He fumbled with his book, trying to close it, but gave up. “What are you doing here?” Why was she this close to the front line? She could get seriously hurt, and Steve really had to stop thinking like that. This was her job, she chose to do it, and Steve admired her for it.

Peggy sat on the step above him, and curled her tail around so it covered her lap. “Officially, I’m not here at all.” She sighed and squeezed water out of the tips of her ears. “That was quite a performance.”

“Uhh yeah…” He stared at the mud between his feet. “I had to improvise a little. The crowds I’m used to are usually a little more… uhh… well…” he waved his hands vaguely.

He glanced up. Peggy’s face was impassive. “So I understand you’re America’s new hope.”

Steve looked away and answered automatically. “Bond sales take a 10% bump in every sale I visit.”

“Is that Senator Brandt I hear?”

“At least he’s got me doing this.” He braced his hands on his knees. “Phillips would’ve had me stuck in a lab.”

“And these are your only two options. A lab rat, or a dancing monkey.” They both looked at what he had been drawing. “You were meant for more than this, you know.” He nodded in agreement to Peggy’s words, and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “What?”

“You know, for the longest time I dreamed about… coming overseas, and being on the front lines, serving my country.” He paused, and bit the inside of his lip. “I finally get everything I wanted, and I’m wearing tights.” Peggy reached out and put her fingers in his hair, and he leant into the touch. He closed his eyes for a moment, and over the pounding rain, he could hear people yelling, and an automobile’s horn. He looked over at where the sound was coming from. “They look like they’ve been through hell.”

“These men more than most.” Peggy’s fingers retracted from his hair abruptly, as if she had been doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing, and she smoothed out the fur on her tail. Steve looked up at her questioningly, and she hesitated before elaborating. She probably wasn’t supposed to tell him anything. “Schmidt sent out a force to Pisano.” Steve knew that much. The USO girls had been discussing it. “Two hundred men went up against him, and less than fifty returned. Your audience contained what was left of the 107th. The rest were killed or captured.”

Steve was utterly speechless for a long while, his brain steadily processing the information. It suddenly clicked in the back of his mind. “The 107th!?” Everything leapt into his brain at once. The first and foremost was Bucky.

Bucky, who had signed up for war, and had been assigned to the 107th, when Steve should’ve have been right by his side. 

He was up and running, pulling Peggy through the rain before he could stop himself. 

“What?” Peggy shouted, her coat draped over her head to keep herself dry.

“Come on!” Steve couldn’t get her to the administration tent quickly enough. “Colonel Phillips!” He made a beeline for the old Alpha, who was sitting at a desk, reading over some sheets of paper.

“Well, if it isn’t the Star Spangled Man with a Plan. What is your plan today?”

“I need the casualty list from Pisano.”

Phillips glared up at him. “You don’t give me orders, son.”

Steve bit back a ruder retort, and went for what he wanted. “I just need one name, Sargent James Barnes, from the 107th.”

Phillips looked at Peggy, who was standing behind Steve, close enough for her leg to be brushing his tail. She shrunk a little. “You and I are going to have a conversation later that you won’t enjoy.”

Steve stepped closer to the Colonel. “Please tell me if he’s alive sir. B A R.”

“I can spell.” Phillips snapped, cutting him off. He stood, bringing with him the sheets of paper. He flicked through them briefly. “I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I care to count, but the name does sound familiar.” Phillips turned to look at Steve. “I’m sorry.”

Steve’s world crashed, and he could only stare at Phillips. Bucky was… Bucky was dead? No. It couldn’t happen. Bucky was strong and fast and clever. He should’ve come back. He _promised_ that he’d come back to Steve. Peggy’s hand nudged his, and his brain leapt back into gear. “What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission?”

“Yeah. It’s called winning the war.” The other Alpha raised his eyebrows, and Steve grit his teeth.

“But if you know where they are, can’t you at least…”

Phillips cut him off with a gesture to a map on the wall. “They’re thirty miles behind the lines, through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We’d lose more men than we’d save, but I don’t expect you to understand that because you’re a chorus girl.”

Steve’s temper flared up, and his ears flattened against his head. Chorus girl? No, _damnit_ , he was not. “I think I understand just fine.”

“Then understand it somewhere else.” Steve turned away from Phillips, tuning his voice out. He let his eyes fall over the map, dedicating as much of it to memory as possible, which was to say, a lot. “If I read the posters correctly, then I guess you have somewhere to be in thirty minutes.”

“Yes sir.” Steve turned away from the map. “I do.”

“What do you plan to do? Walk to Austria?”

Steve was halfway through collecting everything he thought that he would need when Peggy caught up to him, stomping into the tent. He shrugged, and grabbed a Miss A’s helmet. If he wasn’t going to be there for the show, she wouldn’t need it. “If that’s what it takes.” He was getting Bucky back, or he wasn’t coming back. 

“You heard the Colonel.” Her voice softened. “Your friend is most likely dead.”

Steve pressed his ears flat and pulled the helmet over them. “You don’t know that.” Neither did he, but he had to find out. As an Alpha, Bucky had been the best thing that he had had in terms of a mate. He wasn’t going to just let that slip away without a fight.

“Even so, he’s devising a strategy. If he finds out…” She placed herself between him and the door.

He picked up his shield. “By the time he’s done that it could be too late.” His voice came out as an angry snarl, and Peggy jumped out of the way in shock. Steve strode straight past her.

“Steve!” She grabbed his jacket as he was tossing everything in the back of a jeep.

Steve looked down at her, and ducked his head, a little doubtful. “You told me you thought I was meant for more than this.” He dropped the shield with his bag. “Did you mean that?”

Peggy held his gaze steadily. “Every word.”

He hastened to the driver’s seat. “Then you’ve gotta let me go.” He pulled his tail out from under him quickly.

The Omega leant against the doorframe. “I can do more than that.”

...

So, more than that turned out to be convincing Howard to help them hijack an aeroplane. It worked, they weren’t caught, and now, he was flying over the Austrian border. Peggy was giving him orders, telling him where he was going. He focused on the map she had handed him. They were about five miles from the factory now.

“This is your transponder.” Peggy glared at him sternly, after a rather awkward moment where he attempted to ask if Peggy and Howard were mated. He just had to know. He took the little device.

“Does it work?” He asked.

Howard laughed from the cockpit. “It’s been tested more than you, pal.” He called back. Steve grinned and tucked it in his pocket. After he had chased down Erskine’s killer, and before he got dragged around the country as a tourist attraction, he had been put through his paces, testing his strength, speed, memory, you name it. They had collected just about every fluid sample possible from him, blood, saliva, urine, sweat (that took ages), semen (that was awkward), pure pheromones (that one was painful), and had taken numerous x-rays, tested his healing capabilities, his metabolism, his resistance to various toxins. There wasn’t a test that he wasn’t put through.

Just then, the plane shuddered, and Steve could hear the crack of bullets hitting the belly of the plane. Both he and Peggy braced themselves. He grabbed his shield, and tightened the strap of the parachute, and made for the door.

“Get back here!” Peggy demanded, spinning to follow him. “We’re taking you all the way in.”

He ignored her. What was the point of being an Alpha if you couldn’t ignore an Omega for her own good? If this plane was shot down, Peggy and Howard would both die, and he would never forgive himself. He opened the rear door and sat down, his legs hanging out in the icy air. “As soon as I’m clear, you turn this thing around, and get the hell out of here!” He swallowed nervously and eyed the pine trees, a mile below him. He hadn’t jumped out of a plane before.

She crouched next to him and grabbed his helmet, dragging his head towards her. “You can’t give me orders!”

He looked up at her and detached her hand, and rubbed the palm with his thumb. “The hell I can! I’m a captain!” He pulled his goggles on, gave her a grin, and jumped.

The wind rattled his helmet and shield, and he nearly let it go, but when he deployed the parachute, it stopped, and he floated towards the ground. For a brief moment in the sky, before he fell below the tree line, he caught a glimpse of an enormous building, lit up with large floodlights.

He rolled when he hit the ground, and dumped the parachute under a tree, rolling it up tightly so it wouldn’t be found until long after he was gone.

He orientated himself, and started running.

It took him eight minutes to get to the gate. It took him all of three seconds to realise that he had no chance of just walking in there. He only had to wait another few minutes until a convoy came along. Pure luck. He vaulted into the back of the last jeep, and found himself face to face with two armed men.

“Fellas.” They both leapt at him, and he slipped around them, blocking their attacks, and kicked them both out of the jeep. He knocked out the man who pulled the canvas that covered the back of the jeep away, and jumped out. A glance around told him where he needed to go, and made haste for the main factory.

He didn’t have to hit anyone else until he got to the locked door. He tapped on the window and gained the attention of the guard on the other side. He happily opened the door and poked his head through. Steve cracked the man’s head against the concrete wall, and punched his nose in, before stowing the body behind some boxes and making his way across the floor.

The factory wasn’t busy, but the air still buzzed with activity, shouted voices form further down the hall, the whirr of machinery. Steve kept between large gas cylinders, pistol drawn, and stayed out of sight. He stumbled across the table that was playing host to unusual glowing blocks by accident, and took one to bring back. Just in case it could help with the war effort, and continued.

The next time he was the cause of someone’s unconsciousness, he hit the man in the face with his shield, and crouched to grab the keys on his belt. He was standing over the metal grids that acted as the roof of some cells. There were men inside.

“Who’re you supposed to be?” they were all looking up at him, but only one spoke.

“Uhh… I’m Captain America.” 

“I beg your pardon?” An English voice followed him as he made for the stairs.

He opened all of the prison cells, disregarded the terse conversation between an Alpha with a bowler hat and a man who appeared Japanese, but who definitely came from Fresno, and asked if there was anyone else. Bucky wasn’t here. Steve started to worry that Peggy had been right.

“Is there anyone else? I’m looking for a James Barnes.”

The English man spoke to him. “There’s an isolation ward on the other side of the factory, but no one’s ever come back from it.”

Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat and nodded, rethinking his options. He would have to check the facility, he wasn't taking the chance that Bucky might not be there, and leave these soldiers to get out on their own. “The tree line is north west, eighty yards past the gate. Get out fast, and give ‘em hell. I’ll meet you in the clearing with anyone else I find.” He didn’t look back until one of them told him to wait.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”

He said the first thing that came to his mind that might give these men some courage. “Yeah. I’ve knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times.” So it was part of his routine with the USO girls, but still true. They all looked at each other, and Steve left.

If he hadn’t seen the little man leaving a room when he got to the other side of the factory, he wouldn’t have found Bucky. Instead of following the Beta—he left no distinctive scent behind—he went into the small room, and found Bucky strapped to a gurney, mumbling vague pieces of information.

He leant over the brunet’s side. “Bucky!” He glanced down his friend’s body. “Oh my God.” Starting at Bucky’s feet, he broke the straps holding him down, and freed him.

“What is… what is that?” Bucky’s eyes couldn’t focus on him very well.

“Bucky, it’s me. It’s Steve.” His hand was in Bucky’s hair rubbing into his skull gently, and his other hand was at Bucky’s hip, prepared to pick Bucky up if he had to.

Bucky’s eyes finally focused, and he smiled. “Steve.” 

“Yeah, come on.” He helped Bucky up, and when they were both standing, Steve cupped his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck, pressed their foreheads together. “I thought you were dead.”

Bucky leant away and looked at him. “I thought you were smaller.” 

Steve didn’t answer, and looked around the room frantically. They had to get out. Now. His eyes fell on a map that had six locations marked. He glanced over each of them. Italy, Greece, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Belgium. (Yes I paused and squinted over the map for five minutes to figure them all out… >.>)

Now they had to get out. “Come on.” He had Bucky’s arm over his shoulder, and his arm around the brunet’s waist.

“What happened to you?” Bucky asked as they moved down the corridor.

Steve paused and pressed his nose into Bucky’s hair. “I joined the army.” He breathed in, expecting to be reassured that Bucky was fine, but he smelt… 

_wrong_. Too sweet, and dirty. But considering that he was covered with grime, that was expected.

Bucky was full of questions as he slowly got use of his legs back. “Did it hurt?

“A little.”

“Is it permanent?”

“So far.” Bucky was running alongside Steve now.

When he got back to the factory floor, it was all in smoke and flames. He urged Bucky up the stairs, and they ran into Schmidt. Schmidt put a three-inch dent in his shield, and then pulled his own face off. Steve wanted to throw up. The man under the mask was a demon, blood red skin, no nose, ghastly holes for ears and pronounced canine teeth.

They were cut off from the exit, after Schmidt left. The little Beta scientist had retracted the bridge, and there were no controls on this side. Instead, Steve saw a crane beam on the level above. They could cross that. He made Bucky go first. He would rather stay here and die knowing that Bucky was safe, than have Bucky be engulfed in flames, and be alive himself.

Bucky had to leap from the beam as it collapsed under his feet, and landed safely on the other catwalk, but it left Steve stranded. Bucky looked up, clutching the guardrail between his hands. “There’s gotta be a rope or something!”

“Just go!” Steve refused to stand and watch Bucky burn with him. “Get out of here!” He wasn’t above using his Alpha status to make Bucky listen to him. “No!” Bucky slammed his hands against the rail, every line of his body defiant. “Not without you!” 

Steve gulped and took another look around, before kicking in his side of the railing out and backing away to give himself the best run up as possible. 

This was it. Leap of faith. He could do this, right?

He sprinted towards the edge of the catwalk, bounded off the edge, right over the flames, and mid leap, he knew he wasn’t going to make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for those who haven’t seen the movie. That must be heart stopping.  
> But if you’re one for cliff-hangers, read Matthey Reilly’s Seven Ancient Wonders series. The second book actually ends with one of the most awfully suspenseful cliff-hangers ever. Seriously. And it’s a good book, too. Totally should become a movie. (and when I say movie, I mean seventeen hour epic with perfect casting and every little teensy detail included.)
> 
> Also I'm not sure if it's Pisano that the 107th go to, I Googled it, and it's a bakery somewhere in North-West Italy...
> 
> Oh, also, I told mum that she won't want to read this, and she thinks it's soft-core porn. She thought I was laughing in embarrassment because it was true...


	6. The Beginning of the End of the Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bar was silent around him, and it made the sound of the bottle against the table seem that much louder. Steve couldn’t focus on much else aside for the burn of the liquor as it slid down his throat. If he thought of anything else, he would think, undoubtedly of Bucky, and he would break something else.  
> He didn’t see how burnt and damaged the bar was around him—victim to the air raids—and he certainly didn’t see Peggy enter, too preoccupied by his distraction to notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asdghjkl; I finally forced myself to finish this chapter. And the next one, but that's cheating and you'll see why because I'm posting that too. I feel awful. I. Gosh. This is a good and a bad chapter, I guess.

1943

  
He missed the platform entirely, even stretched out, his fingers just didn’t reach far enough, but then he jerked to a halt, a vice like grip around his wrist, and he looked up and opened his eyes to see Bucky, flat on his belly, holding his wrist tightly.  
“Damn, you’re heavy.” Bucky groaned, and hauled Steve up so that the super soldier could pull himself up. “That was a leap and a half.” Bucky flopped over Steve’s stomach and nuzzled his face into the nearest part of Steve he could reach when they were both lying on the metal grating.  


  
It was a thirty-five mile hike back to the camp that Steve had been performing for. He had possibly forgotten about that part. It took them nearly two days, even with the numerous jeeps and tanks they had arrogated. Anyone too injured or exhausted got a ride back. Everyone else walked, Steve at the front.  
Bucky didn’t let go of his hand the whole trip, as if afraid that Steve would just vanish, or revert back to what he used to be. Steve didn’t want to let go, afraid that Bucky might be lying to him about how injured he was. There was a cheer when they finally saw the checkpoint, and Bucky squeezed his hand. The entire rest of the 107th was waiting for them at the gate, a path right down the middle, leading them directly to the recreation grounds. Bucky abruptly released his hand, and adjusted his grip on his misappropriated rifle. Steve looked at him and smiled.  
He had Bucky, _his_ Bucky, his mate, back.  
When he spotted Colonel Phillips, the grin slid off his face.  
He was in so much trouble.  
He came to a halt and saluted the older Alpha and got straight down to business before Phillips could say anything. “Some of these men need medical attention.” Phillips looked around, and Steve knew that he was going to regret the next words he had planned to say. “And I would like to submit myself to disciplinary action.”  
Steve could almost feel Bucky tense behind him, and Phillip’s gaze was arrested by something over Steve’s shoulder, probably Bucky’s alarmed (and possessive) expression. “That won’t be necessary.”  
Bucky took his hand and squeezed it gently, and Steve couldn’t stop the smile as much as he would have liked to. “Yes sir.”  
Peggy approached him next, clearly angry about one thing or another. She eyed Bucky off over Steve’s shoulder. She looked up at him, ears flat against her skull. “You’re late.” She was angling for indignant, but failed.  
Steve patted his pockets for the comm. unit she had given him. He held it up. It was clearly crushed. “I couldn’t call my ride.” Peggy’s ears relaxed, she rolled her eyes, and Bucky let go of his hand.  
“Hey!” everyone quietened down to look at Bucky. “Let’s hear it for Captain America!”  
Steve could only stand there and endure the praise. People patted his back, knocked on his helmet gently, and Bucky pressed himself against Steve’s back and pulled on his tail.  


  
When Steve was supposed to be receiving a medal that no one told him about, Steve was underground in London, marking a map so that it resembled the one he had seen in the room where he found Bucky. He murmured to himself as he wrote. When he finished, the map was whisked away, and Peggy was looking at him in a funny way.  
“I just got a quick look.” He explained.  
“Well,” Peggy raised her eyebrows briefly. “Nobody’s perfect.” She led him to the large map on the table, where someone had already set up little flags and model factories.  
“These are the factories we know about. Sergeant Barnes said that all the parts got shipped to another facility that isn’t on this map.”  
Phillips surveyed the map for a brief moment. “Agent Carter, you are to coordinate with MI-6. I want every allied eyeball looking for that main Hydra base.”  
“What about us?” When Peggy said ‘us’ she was including Steve.  
“We, are going to set a fire on Johann Schmidt’s ass. What do you say, Rogers?” Phillips accepted some documents from a blonde Omega-dame. “With that map, do you think you can wipe Hydra off the planet?”  
Steve glanced at the map. “Yes sir. I’ll need a team.” He had a few people in mind…  
“We’re already putting together the best men.”  
“With all due respect sir, so am I.”  


  
The next place Steve went was a pub a few blocks down, after inviting a few people. He waited for the men to get a ways into their beer before he proposed his idea.  
“So let’s get this straight…”  
“…We barely got out of there alive, and you want us to go back?”  
After a month stuck in the same cell in Austria, the group of men had pretty much learnt to read each other’s minds. Either that, or these two were a bonded pair. Which would be better in the long run for the team, but not in the long run for life.  
Steve shrugged. “Pretty much.”  
The English Alpha adjusted his watch. “Sounds rather… _fun_ , actually.”  
The Beta from Fresno belched, and Steve could see his tail wagging excitedly. “I’m in.”  
Two more of the men conversed in French for a second, their conversation more an exchange of body language and hand gestures than anything. They shook hands, and the dark-skinned man looked around. “We’re in.”  
Steve looked at the last man. “And I’ll always fight. But you gotta do one thing for me.”  
“And what’s that?” Steve sat back in his chair comfortably.  
The man drained his beer. “Open a tab.”  
Steve chuckled and gathered the glasses. That he could do. He bought another round for the men and went to the other side of the bar to where Bucky was nursing a glass of whisky.  
“See? I told you. They’re all idiots.” Bucky was smiling, but Steve could tell that he was still tense. He sat on the other side of Bucky.  
“How about you?” His hand automatically covered Bucky’s casually. “You ready to follow ‘Captain America’ into the jaws of death?”  
Bucky grinned and shifted his fingers under Steve’s hand. “Hell no.” Bucky gave a grim smile and leant into Steve’s side. “That little Alpha from Brooklyn that was too… _dumb_ to run away from a fight? I’m following him.” Bucky flipped his hand over and pushed his fingers through Steve’s. “But you’re keeping the outfit, right?”  
Steve looked across the bar to where there was a poster listing the session times that he was supposed to be performing in. There was a sticker across it that declared them all ‘cancelled until further notice’. Steve smiled at the poster. He looked, quite frankly, ridiculous, in that woollen getup, but it was distinctive. “You know what? It’s kind of growing on me.”  
“Good.” Bucky picked up his glass and took a sip.  
“Did you know you smell weird?” Steve reached over with his free hand and patted Bucky’s head.  
“No.” Bucky hummed and toyed with his glass on the bench. “What's weird about it?”  
Steve pressed his nose to Bucky’s hair and smelt. “Warm, sweet. You…” The singing in the next room stopped, and that was the first time that Steve was aware that there was music. Both he and Bucky leant back at the same time to look into the other room.  
Bucky stiffened under his arm, and Steve guiltily retracted it.  
“Agent Carter!” He slid off his barstool, and felt Bucky do the same next to him. He ducked his head and did his best to respect Peggy’s superior position.  
“Well, they’re a right fun lot, aren’t they?” She tilted her head in the direction of the other room and Steve shrugged.  
“I trust them, they get the job done.”  
“I certainly hope they will.”  
Bucky cleared his throat quietly, his fingers scraping the hem of Steve’s jacket impatiently. Peggy ignored him, staring right as Steve instead. He felt the urge to twitch away and put Bucky between them, like he always used to when an Omega stared at him too hard. He didn’t, he just stared back and held himself stock-still. Maybe he would spontaneously combust and that would definitely save him from her intense stare. It was staring to become really, very uncomfortable, with Bucky—his mate, a _Beta_ —on one side, and Peggy, beautiful, strong, independent, Omega, on the other.  
“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She finally broke the silence, and turned away with a swish of her tail.  
“Oh my god.” Bucky scratched the back of his head. “I’m a Beta, and she didn’t even see me.”  
Steve smiled and turned so he could put his hand on Bucky’s head. “You know rank doesn’t matter to her, right?”  
For some reason, he didn’t think that Bucky was in anyway placated.  


  
They went to the mainland of Europe straight away.  
What Steve remembered of Europe most vividly wasn’t the explosions, or the running or the fighting or the cold harsh nights, but rather the little things.  
There were five men that Steve took with him, not counting Bucky, and each of them came to play an important part in Steve’s life.  
Dum Dum Dugan was tall, broad, and as strong and as stubborn as an ox. It was many a time that Steve and he butted heads, it was only natural for that to occur when there were two strong male Alphas in one pack. Dum Dum was good with most weapons, not so much revolvers and the like, but shotguns, explosives, knifes, vehicles, he was generally good, but not excellent, but he was still useful, and extremely loyal after the first few fistfights Steve had beat him at.  
The second Alpha was James Falsworth. He was less concerned with leading, and was more content with light, playful banter with the other men. He didn’t get on so well with the French Omega, Jacques Dernier, to begin with, and they never bonded over time, Jacques was already bonded, Steve could smell it, but when the nights got cold and lonely, they would still share a tent, and no one ever said anything lest the next time they returned to London, James got arrested.  
Steve always had Bucky, but without an Omega in heat, he never felt the need for anything more than a warm something to have nearby.  
The last two men were both Betas; there was Gabe Jones, the man with dark skin and who spoke three languages, and Jim Morita, half-Japanese, and spoke enough of the language to be able to slip them past outposts when needed.  
Everything was unusual, they coordinated perfectly, slid around each other in and out of combat, Steve had a _pack_. The word felt heavy and odd on his tongue, and every time it passed through his mind, it felt like there was a weight in his chest, substantial and warm, made him feel a little more real and whole, but he  
still felt empty on occasion, like a part of him was elsewhere and no matter what he did, he never could find what he was missing.  
They became the Howling Commandos, the name more of a joke than anything to begin with, Gabe and Dum Dum were more comfortable with their instincts, and sometimes were prone to actually howling when they succeeded. It was a nice, surreal feeling that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and none of them can resist joining, letting their voices range through the trees and fire as eerie, unbroken cries of victory.  
Steve remembered the little things the best, quiet moments in front of the fire, packs of cards, makeshift baseballs and singed rabbit legs for food.  
“So we’re fifty miles out?” Steve and James were pouring over their maps, trying to decide if it was best to go over the mountains, under them, or right around.  
“Lineally, but if we follow the road it’s closer to ninety, even a hundred miles.”  
“That will take us too long.”  
“If we follow the road until we get to the train tracks, and then head directly north, we can cut it down to seventy, I’d think. Unless we catch a plane or get us a truck, we won’t get there any closer to a week.”  
Steve tapped his fingers on the maps for a moment, and sighed. “Alright. The road, then north.” He tapped once more, a little harder, and stood to return to the fireside.  
Dum Dum and Jim were folded over each other, Jim mostly asleep, and Dum Dum cleaning his gun with a pipe between his teeth. Jacques was leaning on Jim’s legs, talking to Gabe in the language they shared, Steve was almost certain it was French, what little words they spoke were flowing and soft, and their hands and bodies said more than their throats.  
Steve didn’t understand a bloody word.  
Bucky was leaning against a stump, knees tucked to his chest, his eyes worryingly dark. Steve sat next to him, and took a deep breath.  
Something smelt wrong, he noticed, there was more than the harsh pine scent and the smoke, followed by the underlying muskiness of three Alphas in such close quarters. No, there was a hint of sickly sweetness, and a touch of bitterness that made the saccharine aroma that much more prominent.  
Bucky looked up at him, and he looked unsure for a change. “Steve, I…” He frowned, and looked back at his toes. “I don’t feel well.”  
Steve put an arm over Bucky, pulled him close and Bucky complied, falling lax in Steve’s grip so quickly that he slipped and ended up laying half over Steve’s legs.  
“I’m going to get some air.” Bucky stood as quickly as he had fallen into Steve, and Steve stood as well.  
“I’ll come with you.”  
Steve kept his eyes trained on Bucky, and now that he was looking for it, Bucky did seem a bit pasty, and sweat was beading at his temples. Bucky nodded quickly and led him away from the fire, not too far, but enough so the smoky smell and the murmuring voices were nearly gone, leaving them alone with their thoughts.  
“Shit.” Bucky hissed and unzipped his snow jacket, pulled it off hastily. It was suddenly hot and his skin was crawling under his clothes despite the soft, downy snow that crunched under their feet, and fell through the thick tree cover.  
“Bucky?” Steve asked, reaching out to place his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky flinched when Steve touched him, and he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the way his stomach way cramping up with need, and how the rest of his body flushed hot and heavy. He choked on his next breath when Steve stepped closer, smelling perfect and strong and…  
“Bucky, is everything alright?” Steve’s voice turned demanding, Capitan-esque, and Bucky answered without thinking, or really, consenting his body to speak.  
“I… fuck, _Steve_ , it’s hot and bright and everything hurts.” Small whimpers escaped his throat, and he wanted so much to touch Steve, feel his warmth and be filled by it, any way possible.  
“It’s alright, I’ll try to—” Steve was cut off when Jacques entered their small clearing abruptly, eyes wide and panicked.  
Steve automatically stood in front of Bucky and snarled, angry and loud. Jacques stepped back, ducked his head in submission, but didn’t leave.  
He said something in French, hurried, hysterical, his movements and voice not flowing and soft like usual, rather jerky and harsh, and then curled over with a soft, choked sob, clutching his stomach as he dashed off.  
Steve didn’t try to make anything of it. Bucky was pawing insistently at Steve’s lower back, so he took a deep, steadying breath to level his head, to clear away the aggression that had just overtaken him, but got a lungful of Omega heat pheromones, and a belly full of lust instead.  
He whirled and grabbed Bucky quickly; not thinking of consequences, in his defence this had just been sprung on him, and pushed the man against the closest tree even as he pressed his lips to Bucky’s sloppily. Bucky moaned and arched into him, clutching at Steve’s shoulders tightly.  
In return, Steve lifted Bucky, his fingers digging into the softer flesh on either side of what was left of Bucky’s tail, and ground their hips together, Bucky’s legs now locked around his waist. Steve doesn’t spare much thought after that. He fumbles with his pants, Bucky’s too, and even he can’t miss the dampness on Bucky’s legs.  
It doesn’t cross Steve’s mind once that it’s wrong for Bucky’s body to be producing any form of slick lubrication, and instead, trailed the fingers of one hand to the source of the lubricant, fighting slightly with the canvas of Bucky’s pants, and had to put Bucky down to remove them properly before continuing. It was easy for Steve to work two, and then three fingers into Bucky’s body, and his cock jerked, he could feel it spurt a splash of pre-come against his wrist, when he felt Bucky’s ass twitch around his fingers.  
Bucky just moaned and writhed and whimpered encouragement into Steve’s ear, begs for more and harder and _more_.  
Steve fucked Bucky for the first time against a conifer in the snow, their pack hardly twenty yards away, his pants hardly past his hips, and Bucky hardly better. It was desperate and rough and carnal, and Bucky shouted and was noisy and his breath hitched in Steve’s ear when he came, semen dribbling out of his cock sluggishly. Bucky tightened around Steve, and he could only press in harder and faster to reach his own end, scraping Bucky’s back against the rough pine bark, and they both felt themselves shuddering when Bucky was suddenly far tighter around Steve’s cock than before.  
Steve leant in more, thinking less about physiology and more about how good it felt to have Bucky tight around the base of his cock, and one sharp thrust later he was coming, his body twitching in short, aborted thrusts against Bucky’s.  
He sunk to his knees, keeping Bucky pinned to the tree, his mouth and teeth working a bruise into Bucky’s left shoulder, and when he felt up to moving a minute or two later, he found that he couldn’t remove himself from Bucky.  
It wasn’t a mental thing, he physically couldn’t move.  
Bucky didn’t seem to notice—he was shivering slightly, and gasping into Steve’s neck—but it bothered Steve.  
“Bucky, Bucky wait.”  
“What?” Bucky made a half-assed attempt to look at Steve, but couldn’t do much more than head butt Steve lightly.  
“I can’t move.”  
“Don't care,” he licked Steve’s neck, “feels good.”  
Steve pushed at Bucky and tried moving again. He felt vulnerable, and felt the need to protect Bucky, but he couldn’t see around, his back was presented to the clearing.  
“Stop.” Bucky grumbled. “I’ll bet you’ve knotted. Or didn't you ever get the birds and the bees talk?”  
Steve tried to lift Bucky again.  
“Fucking hell, stop it. It hurts. You’ve killed the mood.” He sounded rightfully pissed off now. “It’s not going to go away for a while. The pack won’t let anything near us. Just relax and kiss me.”  
True to Bucky’s words, Steve slid out of Bucky of his own accord about fifteen minutes later.  
Steve sat back, and buttoned his pants up. As if the pack didn't know what they had been doing. Ugh. Will be doing. If the way that the flush in Bucky’s cheeks hasn’t subsided is suggesting anything. Why had he even bothered making himself presentable?  
“Okay. That was great.” Bucky shifted and scraped his nails through the coarse hair through his groin. “But I’m sitting in a snowdrift and there are sticks poking into my ass. Can we go back to the tents? Preferably before the next heat hits?”  
Steve just scooped Bucky up in one swift movement, and stood. He carried the brunet back to the tents, and all Bucky could do was make grabby hands over Steve’s shoulder with a plaintive cry of; “My pants!”  
Bucky started whimpering not long after they sealed themselves in Steve’s tent. Well, their tent. They were frustrated and angry sounds, and Bucky looked like he’s going to cry in his vexation. Steve undressed himself rather quickly.  
“You know, I think I liked being Beta better.” Bucky grumbled. He was pulling the rest of his clothes off, one eye on Steve, probably to make sure that he didn’t leave.  
“This might just be a left over thing from your phase?” Steve offered. It was a weak argument. Schmidt’s scientist had done something to Bucky. Something terrible.  
“Bullshit.” He flopped across the sleeping bag, feet falling into Steven’s lap haphazardly.  
“How are you feeling?”  
“Warm, mostly. I think I’m going to bruise.” He reached down to pull at the skin at the top of his thigh, where Steve had been gripping him.  
“Tell me when you need a hand again.”  
“You should know when, Mr I-can-smell-an-Omega-in-heat-three-blocks-down.”  
Steve grumbled in reply, soft and miffed. Bucky snorted.  
“Well considering that you seem to lack a refractory period, can you just fuck me through the interim?” Bucky pushed himself up onto his knees and waggled his arse in the air. His tail flicked impatiently.  
Steve grabbed his hips and dragged him closer. “I can do that.” He dropped his head to bite at Bucky’s back, drawing red lines under the skin with his teeth.  
They couldn’t really be subtle when it came to scent, so they didn’t even try when it came to sound. Steve held his waist tightly and curled over Bucky protectively, and fucked him until they’re both sweaty and slick and half sobbing from exhaustion, whilst he promised things the whole time.  
 _Next time, this’ll be so much better, we’ll know next time, I’ll make it so good for you, next time, next time. Next time._  
The first few rounds, it’s energetic, frequent, and they’re both left with bruises. Bucky wasn’t quite as tireless as Steve, and slumped into the sleeping bag whilst Steve held his hips up and drowned himself in the clench and tug of Bucky’s body, the Omega moaning pathetically beneath him. They fell asleep with Steve knotted inside Bucky, and woke in the early hours of the next morning, Bucky working his hand frantically over his cock.  
Steve didn’t stop him, just reached out and touched, covered as much of Bucky’s leg as he could with his hand, and dug his fingers in when Bucky groaned in resignation and gave up, used the points of contact as leverage to spread his legs and pull him closer, up, and Bucky went without a fight. He took it slower this time—the rest of the pack would be sleeping and they had to be ready to travel at the drop of a hat—and he was fairly sure Bucky appreciated the notion. Steve might heal bruises quickly, but the other certainly didn’t.  
He took his time, worshiped Bucky’s body, every joint, muscle, tendon, hair. He traced his fingers, feather light, across the lines where moonlight filtered through the trees and the holes in the top of the tent, leaving wispy flickers of white on his skin. Followed them with his lips.  
Bucky’s shoulders were still broad and strong, muscles playing smoothly from neck to clavicle to deltoid. The dip in his spine was still apparent, and Steve ran his fingers along it, the palm of his hand skating across skin that was as rough and scarred as it was soft. From there, Bucky got softer, more deposits of fat over his hips, not much, there wasn’t much, not enough to eat to get fat, but enough to bruise without hindering movement, enough to stop harsh grips from damaging muscle against bone.  
It was there that he gripped, pulled Bucky closer and further up, so he was sitting in his lap, put one hand between his sturdy shoulders for support, pressed up, into him carefully. Bucky’s exhalation was slightly stuttered, and he sagged against Steve, head bowed so his breath ruffled Steve’s already messed hair. He put his lips to Bucky’s throat, and rocked up.  
Bucky made a small sound like he was dying, and Steve didn’t stop.  


  
Luckily, the rest of his pack had enough tact not to mention anything three days later, when Steve emerged from his tent, naked and reeking of sex. He was planning to burn his clothes, they were unsalvageable and even if they were, the scent was too strong to hide, and would make tracking them very easy. He dropped them in the fire, just near the edge so as not to put the flames out, took one of the billycans and a cloth, and ducked back into his tent.  
They moved off in an hour.  


  
Bucky was flinchy when Jacques next went into heat, expecting his own, but it never happened. He spent sleepless nights sitting in Steve’s lap, both of them listening to Jacques’ wracked sobs and moans, waiting for Bucky to feel dizzy and hot, and for the slickness to start filling him up, prepared for his mate.  
They were forced to conclude three weeks after Jacques’ heat finished that Bucky’s just wasn’t going to come, and they stopped expecting it, and they didn’t worry because heats were erratic when the body is just starting to have them. Either that or that Bucky’s first heat might’ve been a freak of nature, one off thing.  
It didn’t really occur to them that Bucky didn’t need to go into heat anymore, that his _body_ didn’t need to go into heat again.  
Not for the next six months, at least.  


  
It was supposed to be simple. They would board the train, capture the Beta scientist, and wring any and all information from him.  
Hopefully find a cure for Bucky.  
It was only natural that it didn’t turn out so simple.  
Bucky had to…  
Fuck.  
The one time Bucky had to give in to his instincts, to protect his Alpha, was the one time that Steve would never want Bucky to do anything but run and hide, save himself, because Steve didn’t raze a factory to save Bucky for falling out of a speeding train.  
It took every fibre of his being to keep clinging to the iron bar on the train, rather than follow Bucky, rather than let go and fall with him. There was a lot of snow. Maybe they would survive, Steve could keep Bucky alive and they’d get out of this.  
Everything seemed surreal after he pulled himself back into the train. He didn’t want to close his eyes, because every time he did, he could only see Bucky.  
He tried not to think, just let his body move for him, he picked his shield up, and moved himself away from the edge. He stepped over the fallen boxes and the body of the Hydra soldier, and walked in a dead straight line right up to the engine room.  
Gabe was standing at the controls, fiddling with levers and buttons quickly. The beta glanced back the moment Steve’s door slid open, and went back to work when he knew it wasn’t a threat. The train had to be stopped before it got to its destination and only Gabe could read German.  
The scientist was handcuffed and sitting on the floor, scowling around aggressively. Steve resisted the urge to push him over with a foot so he was lying on the floor, submitting, and instead strode straight forwards so he was standing by Gabe’s side.  
It didn’t take long for the brakes to start screeching, and Gabe stepped away from the controls and looked around expectantly.  
“Where’s Barnes?”  
Steve dropped his shield, and didn’t realise until it clanged loudly on the floor. “He… he fell.”  
Gabe had the sense not to say anything, and Steve rested his back against the console and slid to the floor beside his shield.  


  
The bar was silent around him, and it made the sound of the bottle against the table seem that much louder. Steve couldn’t focus on much else aside for the burn of the liquor as it slid down his throat. If he thought of anything else, he would think, undoubtedly of Bucky, and he would break something else.  
He didn’t see how burnt and damaged the bar was around him—victim to the air raids—and he certainly didn’t see Peggy enter, too preoccupied by his distraction to notice.  
He didn’t want to deal with himself. As an Alpha, he failed his team, failed his mate, and therefore himself.  
A pack’s Alpha was supposed to protect everyone in the pack as a whole, at all costs. A mate’s Alpha was supposed to protect the Omega at the cost of his own life. It was the sole purpose of an Alpha, to protect, and ensure that his pack would be able to remain on after he was gone. It was easier to replace an Alpha than it was an Omega, because an Alpha was always looking to increase the size of their pack, but Omegas were content to remain under their Alpha in most circumstances.  
The sole purpose of an Alpha therefore, was to protect.  
And he failed spectacularly.  
Not only did he fail to protect his Omega, even if they were unbonded, it didn’t matter, but he failed to protect his Omega who was more than likely pregnant.  
The liquor scalded and slid down his throat, and he was disappointed because two full bottles of scotch and he wasn’t even slightly buzzed.  
He drank and he drank and drank, until his throat didn’t hurt anymore.  
He drank until he couldn’t recall the scent of Bucky’s heat, until he couldn’t recognise the grain of the timber, but that could be the film of wetness in his eyes.  
He only half talks to Peggy. She talks about respect and Bucky a bit, and she sounded a little jealous, but he can’t remember half of what she said. Not when he’s got half a mind to pull her close and drown himself in her smell, and the other half to break the bottle between his hands.  


  
Truth be told, he doesn’t think about the things after that day. The others tread around him as if he’s going to break. He wouldn’t, but he just lost his mate. It’s expected behaviour.  
He chased Schmidt. If there was one other person who held the blame for Bucky’s death, it was he.  
Schmidt was sucked into a Void by that blue cube. The brightness burnt Steve’s eyes, and even as he did as he said, and crashed the plane into the water, that luminous blue square was still too bright in his eyes.

 

When he wakes up, it’s gone.


	7. Interlude

And so was everything else.


	8. Apostasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have a thing against non-con/underage stuff, back away now. Skip this whole chapter. Seriously. Tony’s like, fifteen, and there’s mentions of him doing sexual stuff when he was nine. Nothing important really happens anyway. Just read up until Tony gets to the party. Yeah. I’ma shut up now.  
> Also the HTML wasn't working too well, so the breaks are not larger gaps. They're fun symbols instead.

1985

Tony hated oppression. 

It's not like he asked to be the way he was, weak, inferior, _Omega_. That word, that _label_ had snapped at his heels since he was able to talk. Every time he misbehaved, or things didn't go the way _dad_ wanted them to go, he'd get sneered at, get compared to Steve fucking Rogers, who dad still bloody mourned over since he crash landed that plane, a good twenty five years prior to Tony's birth, fifteen years ago. Now, he was studying three courses full time at MIT to get out of the house and the oppression from his father, and things had been all right up till now, but now... 

Tony groaned and pulled his doona tighter around himself, He was sweating and shivering and his whole body ached to the bone, and this had been the day he had been dreading since he was three, and was old enough to understand what his father was calling him. 

It was this that made him weak, that made every Omega on earth weak in the eyes of everyone else; the few crippling days a few crippling times a year, that all he wanted, now he thought about it, was _more_. Just more. 

Oh God he knew why they called them heats now. 

He was burning up on the inside, sweltering under the doona, but he has already kicked it off once, and that just made it worse, so here he was; stuck in his bed, pretty much paralysed by his own biology. He had hardly been able to draw the vials of blood from his arm when he managed to get back to his dorm. He might be one of the most socially inept people of the decade, but even he knew when to draw a line, and that was an Omega's heat. It was an incredibly personal thing to ask about an Omega's heat cycles, and even more personal to ask for fluid samples from an Omega in heat. 

So Tony had to wait for his own, devastating, first heat in order to get his precious samples. His purpose? Creating a more efficient suppressant. Because there was no way he was going to skip out of class as a result of faulty suppressants, or worse, have his status questioned. It was nice, having everyone automatically assume that he was an Alpha, and with his temperament, it was easy to back up. 

As of the moment, there were three people alive that knew of his status. Howard Stark, Maria Stark, and Virginia 'Pepper' Potts. 

Pepper was his assistant, and also, coincidentally, an Alpha. Not his Alpha, no, they hadn't imprinted yet, or they were both too stubborn to notice if they had. No, Pepper was just _an_ Alpha, and he was just a genius, soon to be (once his dad died) billionaire, extremely promiscuous, Omega. Not exactly special, but if he could create, and convince his father to market these suppressant pills once he made it, he might be able to finally gain his father's respect. 

Reliant suppressant pills would revolutionize war efforts. Omegas wouldn't have to be tagged, and pulled out of duty if their pills failed to work, which was beginning to happen more and more often, actually, the number of suppressant failures were rising at an alarming rate, but this new suppressant that Tony was hoping to develop would replace the faulty medication, and maybe make his father think that he had some use after all. 

And he wouldn't have to skip class. 

And he really needed a phone that could talk to him so he wouldn't have to get out of bed to make a call. 

There were a lot of things he needed. 

Right now, he actually needed a wash, but before that, he needed help and a phone call. 

Not necessarily in that order. 

The first try of reaching for his phone resulted in him knocking it to the floor. The second attempt worked a bit better, and he pulled it under the covers and pressed buttons in hopefully the right order to call Pepper. 

"Hello?" 

Aww yeah. 

Well calling an Alpha might work a little better if the sound of an Alpha’s voice wasn't going to turn his brain into mush. What was left of it, anyway. 

"Hey Pepper," 

"Are you feeling okay?" 

"What? Why would you be asking that? Unless there's some flu going around. Actually, if there is please hang up now. I'll find a way to the lab to get Dumm-e to do it.” Dumm-e was his prototype mechanical assistant, actually, it was his thesis project, but getting past that, Dumm-e would help him, even if he did make a mistake here or there. 

But going to Dumm-e meant getting out of bed, and walking and he didn’t think his legs would support his weight, oh, and he reeked of pheromones. He was lucky that he didn’t have the nearest Alpha banging on his dorm door. 

“There’s no flu. You just never say hi to me when you call. You just launch into whatever stupid idea you have. So what is it this time?” 

“Do you own any pegs?” 

“Yes. Is it safe for me to ask why?” 

“Bring one and come to my dorm. I need your help.” And he hung up, before pulling the doona closer to his bare skin. 

Pepper took exactly eighteen minutes to get to his dorm, eighteen, slow, torturous minutes. She didn’t bother knocking, she just unlocked the door and let herself in. _Rude._ Well, she was helping Tony, so he could let it slide. 

Pepper clutched the door handle tightly the moment she was inside the room, and covered the lower half of her face with her hand, pinching her nose shut. “Right.” She kept her voice as even as possible. “Peg.” She closed the door, and walked straight past Tony to open the window. “Could you perhaps have told me that you were in heat? No, I suppose that would have ‘ruined the surprise’. What do you need me for?” 

“I’m collecting fluid samples to manufacture an effective suppressant.” Tony poked his nose out of the blanket, and nearly moaned when he could smell the faint Alpha on Pepper through his own pheromones. “I’ve got enough blood, but I can’t get anything else and it’s pissing me off!” His voice rose to a pitiful, childish whine by the end of the sentence, Pepper rolled her eyes, and shoved her head out the window. 

“Define ‘anything else’.” 

“You know what I mean.” Tony grumbled. He squirmed and rubbed the heel of his palm over his hard cock. But really, that just made things worse. 

“You will owe me so much for this favour.” 

“I’ll never skip a class again.” Tony promised. “Look, I’ll even stop wanting to kill myself every time Howard brings up Captain America and I’ll try to stop drinking.” 

Pepper closed the window and stripped her pullover off. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Two hours later, Tony was stretched out on the hardwood floor, a small jar, one of several, concealing his view of the ceiling. The jar was half full of semen. He shook it a little, and set it down by his hip, and picked up a different jar. This one was filled with a viscous, translucent liquid. 

He found it to be a curiosity that Omegas were able to produce a form of lubrication, but Biology wasn’t his thing. He would put up with the whims of biological science for just long enough to produce these suppressant pills and that was it. 

Pepper was laying on her back next to him, half-asleep, and probably exhausted. She would be able to go back to whatever class she had now. Tony had his pure fluid samples now; he could just drink the remainder of his lust away. 

He got to his feet, a little unsteady, and collected his specimen jars and put them in the fridge with his blood samples in the egg rack. He was moderately certain that everything would stay fresh enough at 6˚C (42.8˚F) for a few days. Then he could move them to a proper storage facility at the college. Like the specimen fridges in the Biology rooms. 

He found some clothes and hissed when he pulled a baggy shirt over his head. His skin flared against the soft cotton, and the rest of his body flared against Pepper’s scent, which had permeated the room. He went straight back to the fridge and reached inside for a bottle of beer. He cracked the cap off against the fridge shelf and tilted the bottle back. 

“I thought you were going to stop.” She was giving him a disapproving look. He just knew it. 

Tony ‘mmf-ed’ around the neck of the bottle, and righted it. “I didn’t say when.” He tilted the rim of the bottle at her before pressing it back to his mouth. 

Pepper sighed. 

“Thanks for the help.” Tony walked across the room and pressed the power button for his computer. 

Pepper instantly recognised the dismissal, and went about collecting her clothes. “I’ll be back in a few days.” 

“Sure.” Tony replied and gave a wave, but Pepper already knew he wasn’t fully there, more focused on the casually glitching screen in front of him. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Tony managed to escape his first heat with minimal consequences. He crawled back to bed after a few days, well and truly drunk, feeling like he was going to throw up, but he hadn’t eaten for four days, so there was nothing to throw up. Once he recovered, he rang and bought pizza, ate the whole thing and then showered. He was not leaving his room smelling like he hadn’t done anything but jerk off and play computer games (Galaga, in fact) for four days. 

Okay, so he totally had, but he was never going to admit it, so he wasn’t leaving without having a shower first. 

After that, he shuffled to the fridge, collected his samples, and shuffled across campus to the science department in his AC/DC shirt and blue flannel pyjamas. His tail was still wet and dripping water everywhere, and he hadn’t bothered shaving the fine layer of stubble away, but he really didn’t care. 

Like, _really_ , didn’t care. People didn’t even bother giving him an odd look as he picked his way across the campus. They were all too used to his unusual behaviour and hours, and considering that it was the middle of the night, there was no one about to give him a weird look. When he got to the science department, he realised he left his key card in his dorm. 

Shit. 

He set his collection of jars on the ground and rubbed his eyes before examining the machine that unlocked the door. He deemed it useless to try to hack the doors open. For one, there were no buttons, and he didn’t have a screwdriver. He picked up his jars and checked the windows. 

He finally found one that was left unlocked, and scrambled through it. Satisfied with that, he trotted down the dark hall and into the biology lab. 

Tony made it to the following evening without being disturbed. Well, disturbed by Pepper. He had been getting students and teachers flowing in and out of the lab since seven A.M., and he was getting the occasional hot flush, just the last remnants of his heat leaving his body, but nothing desperate. 

Pepper strutted into the lab at five in the afternoon, and sat on a bench, clearly fuming at something, probably him, but he dismissed that. That was normal. After a while, he waved her over to the microscope he was peering down, and wheeled his chair out of the way so she could have a look. 

“I’ve dyed the cells. This is my blood from today. Now, if I just swap these around…” he groaned when he stretched over the microscope and swapped the two slides. “That’s my blood from four days ago. See how there’s light and dark patches? During a heat, there’s a higher white blood cell count. I’m yet to check that weird lube stuff, but I think it’s mostly composed of excess blood plasma.” 

Pepper leant away from the microscope. “You know this means nothing to me, right?” 

“Omegas go into heat and get really fucking horny and can’t get as much oxygen to their brains because there’s less plasma and red blood cells.” 

“Interesting.” 

“It’s a literal health hazard. If they do too much exercise, especially in that first heat, they could get brain damage.” He pressed his eyes back to the microscope and fiddled with the fine focus knob. “So do you need me for anything?” 

Pepper didn’t reply for a moment, and Tony scribbled down a few numbers on a jotter pad by his elbow. “Your father is hosting a function, and he is requesting your presence.” 

Tony’s fingers tightened around the pencil he was holding, and his tail drooped. “When?” 

“Tonight. In three hours.” 

Tony jerked the slide out of the microscope and quickly packed everything away. “Thanks for the heads up.” 

“You were in full heat when the invitation arrived. I needed you with a clear head before I told you.” Pepper followed him out of the lab, and back to his dorm. “There is a set of clothes on the bed,” Pepper crossed the room and pushed the window open to air the room. Four days of Tony holing himself up in there really made the room reek. Tony squirmed and went to the fridge. 

“No.” Pepper grabbed his wrist and forced him into the bathroom. “You will wash and shave. Mr Stark wants you sober for this.” 

“All the more reason for me to get smashed!” Tony kicked the door and flicked the shower on. He emerged thirty minutes later in a towel with a toothbrush in his mouth to Pepper sitting at his desk writing in a folder. 

“Get dressed.” She didn’t look up. 

“C’mere.” Tony swallowed the toothpaste foam, put the toothbrush on the bench, and approached Pepper. He had decided that he had encountered a slight hitch. See, it wasn’t common knowledge that he was an Omega, and now, just after his heat, he smelt like one more than ever. It was easy to pass off when in the lab. One night stand, left before she woke, etcetera, etcetera. But now, showing up at a public function, his father would never let him live it down if he didn’t maintain all appearances, including scent. Now that he had his heat, his scent wasn’t bland and neutral, and he couldn’t just dash on some cologne and hide it. 

“What?” Pepper turned the chair around. 

“Just hold still.” Tony reached out to her neck and she tensed, ears flattening. He froze until she relaxed, and rubbed the glands in her neck through her skin. The effect was pretty instantaneous, and the glands released pheromones. Tony rubbed what skin of her neck he could reach, and then rubbed his hands over his body, and repeated until he was certain that he didn’t smell like an Omega any more. 

“Will that be all, Anthony?” 

“That will be all, Miss Potts.” Pepper stood and left, and Tony scrambled to the fridge. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The function was held on the fifth floor of the Stark Industries tower. 

At the function, Tony was all smiles. Sure, he had drunk enough hard liquor to knock any other person off their feet, but he had practice with this. 

Pepper knew he was drunk, Howard knew he was drunk, luckily his mother was still under the impression that Tony wouldn’t do such a thing, so he was currently sticking with her to hide from his father. It was that or the cloakroom, and it was warm out here, so here he was. 

Stuck trying to appease his father when he knew that it was already a lost cause. 

His mother caught a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, and Tony smoothed his hands over his jacket to stop them twitching towards the flutes of alcohol. He wasn’t nearly drunk enough to be here, in his opinion, but he wasn’t going to ruin what little affection he got from his mother. 

Pepper was by his side, her planner tucked under her arm. She looked spectacular, and like she belonged here far more than he did, her dress shimmering just a hint in the light, enough to show off the smooth lines of her body. Her hair was swept up loosely at the nape of her neck, and her ears and tail appeared floppy, relaxed. If Tony didn’t know her as well as he did, he’d actually believe that she was entirely calm, laughing politely along with some senator who was just trying to get on the Stark Industries board. 

“Anthony!” Tony winced when someone clapped him on the shoulder, and turned to face the man quickly. “It’s good to see you again.” 

“Justin, a pleasure.” Tony forced a smile at the older man, _Alpha_ , and stood as tall as he could. Justin Hammer was fifteen years older than Tony, and was running Stark Industries’ main rival company, H.A.M.M.E.R. Industries. For a guy who’s supposed to be a genius, he sure wasn’t good at figuring out a more original name. 

As far as Tony’s list of ‘people I hate’ went, Justin was right near the top, just below his father. 

And Captain America. But that was different. 

“So what do you want?” Tony tried to take the venom out of his words. He really did. 

“I just wanted to hear how the prodigal son was doing!” 

“The prodigal son is doing just fine. Now if you’ll just excuse me, I think my father needs me.” 

Yeah, he was doing just fine. Except the part where he was drunk and hating the world because to it, that’s all he was. The prodigal son of Howard Stark. 

He made his way halfway across the room in the direction of his father, and then lost himself in the crowd, totally unaware that Pepper was following. She caught up quickly, minus her planner, and insisted that he come to the dance floor, and tucked her hands around his neck. 

“Tony, you need to calm down.” She had her hands in the back of his hair, near the nape of his neck, and in her heels, she was definitely taller than him, but she was an Alpha, and she did have three years on him. He put his hands on her hips, dangerously low, and smirked up at her, pressing his façade. “I’m serious.” She tightened her fingers, and Tony dug into her hips to hide the wince. “Anger will bring out your pheromones, and the last thing your father wants is for you to end up mated to a rival company.” 

True anger did flare up in him then, and he pressed himself closer to Pepper in hopes that her scent would mask his. Just in case she was right. 

“It’s not like he’s been getting me to do pretty much the same thing for six years.” Tony kept his voice low, so only Pepper could hear him. 

Pepper’s eyes darkened, but her stance didn’t change. She was nearly as good at hiding her true feelings as Tony was. She knew exactly what Howard was getting Tony to do for the company behind closed doors, and she didn’t like it. 

“That’s why I’m not ever _going_ to mate.” Well, mate to an Alpha. 

“What if you bond to one?” 

“I trust you not to screw me over.” 

“Tony, I’m serious.” 

“I’ll tell them to fuck themselves. It’s not going to happen.” 

“What about…” 

“There’s a difference between mating, and getting you to help me jerk off.” Tony sniggered. Pepper rolled her eyes. Tony could be such a child sometimes. Tony rested his cheek on Pepper’s shoulder, and the conversation ended. 

“Why don’t I take you outside for a breath of air?” Pepper eventually decided that it wasn’t good for Tony to be stuck in a room full of adults under his father’s watchful eye, and Tony readily agreed, and let her lead him to the balcony. 

Naturally, only the worst could happen from there. 

“Son, could you please come here and meet Senator Dickerson.” 

Tony froze, and Pepper nearly bumped into him. Her hand was on his shoulder immediately, giving it an encouraging squeeze. Tony plastered a smile to his face, and turned around, making a show of pushing his hair back. “Senator, it’s an honour to meet you.” Tony took the offered hand, and forced himself to appear delighted to meet the senator. He knew what came next, and he didn’t like it. 

Pepper was already gone. Tony refused to allow her to stay around when he talked to his father at functions because the result was always the same, and he knew that Pepper wouldn’t hesitate to jump to his defence. 

It was her job. 

The senator was taller than both himself and Howard, blond, not overly broad, and dressed in a dark blue suit that didn’t quite fit properly. Tony could automatically tell that he wasn’t extremely important, but he clearly had some use to Howard, otherwise he wouldn’t even be talking to the senator. 

“Tony, would you care to show Senator Dickerson around?” Howard used his ‘no-bullshit’ voice, and Tony couldn’t help but lower his head a little. 

“Yes, father.” He smiled up at the senator, and decided that there was no way he would ever be drunk enough for this. “Senator?” 

Whilst Stark Tower was mostly offices and tech labs, Howard had a full set of apartments in the top floors, more penthouse type things, but Tony thought that he’d rather not end up with bruised knees. 

Yeah, because carpet burn was that much less painful. 

Tony was a master at awkward silences, and when they got in the elevator, he drew it out, perfectly content to let the senator fidget uncomfortably. But his short reign of power was over once the elevator arrived on floor sixty. He had a routine, bought about by years of practice. Swallowing his pride, he sank to his knees on the carpet in the middle of the room, head bowed, and waited. 

Physical abuse, he found he could handle. Bruises faded, cuts healed, bones set, and the coppery taste mixed with a hint of bitterness could be washed away. It was the verbal abuse that he found the worst, it stuck in his brain, repeated over and over, stuck on loop. If it wasn’t bad enough that he wasn’t considered worthy of his father’s time, then it was worse that strangers would abuse him, tell him that the only good thing about him was his body, broken as it was already, and slowly, he came to think the same time, which was the only reason he didn’t fight back now that he knew what he was doing was both illegal and immoral. 

“Such a good boy.” The senator’s hand gripped his hair, pinching one of his ears—probably not deliberately, but it hurt anyway—and pulled his head back. 

He let his happen, muscles loose, and he kept his gaze even and calm. Nothing the senator could do would surprise him anymore. 

The senator’s words didn’t strike much of a chord in him. He had been called worse, dog, mutt, bitch, although really, could they be more creative? Their closest non-human relatives were dogs and wolves. Not much of a derogatory term anymore. 

Tony let a lazy smile slide across his face, the senator was probably too stupid to realise that Tony just didn’t care anymore, and he nearly let out a crazy giggle at that thought. A sharp crack rang out in the room, and Tony could only gasp at the flare of pain in his cheek. He turned his head back to look at the senator again. He didn’t break eye contact. If he was going to get beaten around like a common whore, he was doing it on his terms. The fingers in his hair tightened, and then pushed him away roughly. He fell backwards, to the floor, and a heavy foot crashed into his ribs. Good. He was getting to the senator. He would smile to himself, but he got slapped last time that happened. 

“Don’t look at me.” The foot pressed down, compressing his chest, and Tony fought to breathe in, and coughed when he couldn’t. He wet his lips, and forced his gaze up to the ceiling. Now he knew what the senator wanted. 

One sentence, and he knew. The senator was a Beta. Tony could smell that. He was a rather desperate Beta, and just wanted to be the one dominating the situation for a change, and who better to go to than the ‘Alpha’ whose father whores out to companies to seal the deal? 

Because it’s so much better to say that you dominated an Alpha. 

The foot was lifted off his chest and he sucked air into his lungs. He could hear the jingle of a belt, and the rustle of fabric as clothing was pushed out of the way, but he didn’t move. He didn’t want to get hit again. 

His father always looked so disappointed when he came back with bruises. As if it were Tony’s fault. 

The senator didn’t mind that Tony didn’t move, perhaps this was what he wanted, and straddled Tony’s chest. The crotch of the senator’s pants was stretched tight and pressed into his neck, and before the hard cock was pressed into his mouth he was already struggling for breath. The senator leant forwards, planting his hands above Tony’s head, caging him in. Tony refused to panic, and hollowed his cheeks to suck on the flesh in his mouth. The man was already leaking pre-come, and it trickled down the back of his throat, bitter on his tongue, and he gagged on the taste slightly. 

He tilted his head back a little, reluctant to expose his neck, but it would mean he would gag less when the hard length hit the back of his throat as the senator thrust down into his mouth. 

It really hurt, to be used this way. His ribs ached, his brain screamed for oxygen, and he could only pray that the senator finished soon, otherwise he was in actual danger of passing out. His chest panged from holding the tears and breath in, his head too, for the same reason, and because underneath the carpet, no matter how thick and soft it was, the floor was made of concrete, and his skull had hit the ground hard enough for him to see stars when he was thrown to it. 

The senator pulled back before he passed out, and Tony realised that the senator knew that Tony hadn’t been able to breathe, with seventy kilos (155lbs) pressed on his chest, and his throat cut off with the fabric, _bastard!_ , and instead came in short spurts over Tony’s face. Tony closed his eyes, and choked a sob down. Senator Dickerson tucked himself back in after using Tony’s shirt to wipe his softening cock dry, and left Tony shivering there, doing his best not to let tears slip down his face. 

He shakily picked himself back up when he felt that he could, silently thanked the Gods (if they existed, not that he believed in them, but he felt the need to thank _something_ ) that he didn’t have to have sex this time, and quickly stripped his jacket, tie and shirt off, and used his shirt to wipe himself clean. Pepper didn’t show up, for which he was grateful. He didn’t need her to try and make him feel better. 

On his way to the bathroom, he passed a liquor cabinet. He didn’t even try to stop himself, and just grabbed a bottle of whiskey. He wasn’t drunk enough for this. 

One look in the mirror was enough to tell him that his ribs were going to bruise, as was his throat, and there was a neat red handprint on the side of his face. He wasn’t sure how he was going to go back downstairs and face his father, and the crowd, even though he was fairly sure that he’d probably done favours for more than half of it, whether sexual or intellectual. 

He took a mouthful of liquor; it hurt to swallow, before splashing cold water on his face to the speed the fading of the slap mark. He found a fresh shirt, two sizes too big, but he honestly hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place. If anyone were going to complain, he’d direct him or her to his father to take the blame. He buttoned the shirt to the top to hide the blossoming bruise. 

Three mouthfuls of whiskey later, and Pepper finally showed up, just as he was trying to work his tie. She pushed his hands out of the way and fiddled for a minute and then tugged it straight, and Tony started rummaging through the bathroom cupboards to find a toothbrush, or at least toothpaste. 

He found neither, and settled for getting rid of the musky and bitter taste from his mouth by drowning it away with alcohol, before smoothing his hair back into place. The gel in it had cracked now, and it wouldn’t be perfect, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it except wet his hand and comb it back with his fingers, and hope that it held. 

He silently returned the bottle to the cabinet, and had to grip the wooden frame tightly when he started to feel the effects of the additional alcohol. He adjusted, and let Pepper take him downstairs. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It didn’t take him long to figure out a chemical formula that would act as an effective suppressant, and he emailed it and the rest of his findings to his father after he tested it on himself. The making the suppressant bit was quick. The waiting for his next heat wasn’t. 

He waited a full six months before he could feel the edges of lust in his brain, and he quickly excused himself from class, not that the teacher would mind, and drank the vial that would supposedly contain enough of his diluted chemical to hide the effects, at the least, of the heat. 

The effect was pretty instantaneous, his head cleared, and he could almost feel his body stop producing pheromones. Well, sex pheromones. He still had the rest of them, communication, fear, anger. He let out a whoop in joy and grabbed a beer to celebrate, and emailed everything to his father right then. 

Three weeks later, he returned to his dorm room after a marathon of tinkering with Dumm-E’s circuitry to find a box sitting on his kitchen bench. The little robot had a nasty habit of knocking things over. Just a delay in the optical to movement sensors, but he couldn’t seem to fix it. 

He opened the box and found several foil and plastic packets. Each one fit in the palm of his hand, and contained twenty-eight capsules of his chemical. He smiled. Research and Development had been quick on this one. He inspected the packets, and then read the note that was lying flat in the bottom of the box. 

_R &D looked into the formula you sent. It seems to act as an effective suppressant on all test subjects…_

“Well of course it fucking does. I made it.” 

_…the medication needs to be taken once a day, every day, and will effectively suppress hormones and pheromones for the duration of a heat. This will be very useful if the cold war ever comes to a head._

_Howard._

Tony crumpled the paper up and tossed it towards his waste paper basket. “You’re welcome, dad.” 

He went to the fridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha I'm horrible.
> 
> I REGRET NOTHING.  
> It's essential for character development and the rest of the story.
> 
> I know jack shit about MIT, so I’m just going to say that there’s a campus in NY, and be done with it. That’s how he got from University to Stark Tower within three hours.


	9. Iconoclast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was his freedom now, to do what he wanted, with who he wanted, including easily impressionable, barely legal, Omegas. Because hey, he might not have been impressionable, but he certainly hadn't been legal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short crappy chapter, but it'll do as a filler in a pinch.  
> Things are looking up =)  
> Also, the HTML hates me. It's just the between-clause gaps, which are larger, so we'll make do!

1988-2009

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“And that’s why you can’t run the company.” 

Tony put his chin on the desk. He didn’t want to run the company. He wanted to go home, get smashed and forget whom he was. “Yeah, cool.” 

“Tony, you will receive your full inheritance, including the company when you turn twenty-one, but for now you are simply one of its assets.” 

Tony tapped his fingers on the table, and his ears drooped. He was an asset of Stark Industries, of which Obadiah Stane was acting CEO. He swallowed when Stane put a heavy hand on his shoulder. 

“We have to do what’s best for the company.” 

Of course. He was foolish to think that now his father was dead—car accident—he wouldn’t have to use his specific methods of persuasion. He tried to brace himself. He didn’t want to be an asset of SI in this manner, but he knew, the moment Obadiah’s fingers pressed through his hair firmly, that he had no choice. 

Besides, he was only doing what was best for the company, and that was all he had left now. 

“What do you want me to do?” He slipped out from under Obadiah’s hand, and slid his chair across the carpet a few inches. 

“Good boy, Tony.” 

Tony stood when he was allowed, and left. Pepper, who had been waiting outside the door whilst he got told what he could and couldn’t do, followed him closely, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor as they walked. 

“Thank God that’s over.” Tony grumbled. 

“You know I hate to make you do things. But we can’t go home yet.” 

Tony whined in displeasure. He hated doing things. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, when he said that he hated doing things, things meant work that was boring. He was fine with tinkering in his workshop, and he was fine with drowning his worries about being an asset of Stark Industries by treading the thin line between alcohol abuse, and flat out alcoholism, and through sex. 

The sex part was his favourite. He might be an Omega, but so far, only Pepper and Stane knew, and he planned to keep it that way. No, he would just pick up the drunkest Beta or Omega, and take them home, and through the use of an amazing thing called technology, (and maybe because they were drunk, they didn’t notice), he always managed to get away with acting Alpha, and he was in his workshop by morning. He felt a little bad (not really, not at all), for leaving Pepper to usher them out the door in the mornings, but being able to claim, or at least pretend to claim others for a night did him wonders, and helped him get through the three years of being Stark Industries’ most valuable asset until he received his inheritance, including the company. 

The first thing he did when he turned twenty-one was clear out his father’s old office. He was tempted to burn everything, all the records, certificates, ornaments, the desk, chair, the plaque on the door, _the door_ but didn’t. 

Pepper took the desk and the chair off his hands, sold them, Tony told her to keep the profits, and then she let Tony burn everything but the company records. 

She confiscated those. 

Tony set to work immediately. He got a new desk, well, Pepper got him a new desk, and immediately set about updating everything in the tower. Computers, the internet connection, the whole methods of communication in the tower. He hated answering stupid questions, and so opted for e-mails to replace everything. 

The thing was, it _worked_. The board of directors were happy about it, but Tony could tell that they didn’t like receiving orders from a twenty-one year old. 

He built another robot, similar to Dumm-e, but with a slightly more advanced interface, for the tower, to help him in his midnight stints when he wasn’t in California and christened it Butterfingers, (Once he finished his degree at MIT he had moved Dumm-e out to the Stark house in Malibu), and, just to spite everyone, especially the ones who said he couldn’t do it, he built an AI, and lovingly named it Jarvis, after the old butler who had pretty much acted as his father until his untimely death when Tony was eight. 

That particular project took even him several years to complete, but now that he was CEO of Stark Industries, he suddenly had a heap of time that used to be spent convincing various senators and business rivals to just listen to Howard and Obadiah. 

It was quickly filled with (more consensual) sex, booze and inventing. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey babe," Tony looked up from his glass of scotch and the cards before him at the young-ish man who just placed two chips by his elbow, "you know they force me to lose if too many people bet on me." He offered one of his trademark grins and swilled his drink in its glass. 

The boy, for that was what he was, a child, probably nineteen, if that, smiled nervously, and Tony leant back and pressed his cheek into the boys arm, twisting his head to smell him. Omega, nowhere near due for a heat, and-Tony glanced up-attractive, too, neat blond hair, slightly rounded jaw, full lips which kept disappearing behind nervous teeth, and shy hazel eyes, and just the right amount of puppy fat around his hips. His grin amplified. Shy ones were easiest and took less effort to convince because they asked less questions. 

"Stick around a bit," he said, "I'll make it worth your while." He knocked back the rest of his drink and returned his attention to the now inconsequential game, and raised the stakes. Someone threw their cards in and left, someone else folded, and the last person stubbornly waited. 

Five minutes later, he was all but dragging the Omega across the room towards the front doors. He threw a thumbs up to Pepper as he passed, and she absolutely didn't snarl at him as he left. 

"Here," his car was waiting, and he offered a wink to the valet (probably beta), and pulled the passenger door open for the blonde. He jumped behind the wheel and pulled away from the curb. He hummed to himself as he drove, an instinctual response to the wind in his hair and the stars above him, and the Omega shivered. He didn't think about how Pepper would hound him tomorrow morning about irresponsibility and taking advantage, when they both knew that this was nothing compared to what he was and is subjected to. This was his freedom now, to do what he wanted, with who he wanted, including easily impressionable, barely legal, Omegas. Because hey, he might not have been impressionable, but he certainly hadn't been legal. 

He pulled up in his garage and slid out comfortably, waving Dumm-E away from the gaping boy, and pulled him over to the stairs eagerly. He wasn't worried about security breaches because Jarvis would have identified the kid already. 

He grabbed the Omega once they were on flat ground again, one hand on each side of his head, and kissed him greedily. His whole act pivoted around how demanding he could be, how much like an Alpha could he be. 

It was a fair bit, if he was being modest. 

The boy put his hands on Tony's waist awkwardly, and Tony snarled and pressed his fangs into his bottom lip in warning. Rule one of acting like an Alpha; you controlled everything. He shuddered and moaned in response, and Tony scratched his scalp gently in reward. 

It couldn't be said that he was a cruel Alpha. 

Tony stripped his jacket and bow tie off, and started pulling at the kid's shirt impatiently when he just stood there dumbstruck. He got the hint pretty quickly, and Tony pulled him along to the nearest bed, stripping clothes off as they went. 

He didn't give the kid time to look at him before crowding him onto the bed, and used his teeth to draw lines down his spine, and his fingers to press between his legs, the tips finding his hole. Tony bit gently, and sucked a mark just above one cheek and smirked. 

"You’re so good. I can already feel how wet you're getting for me.” He pressed his teeth against the meat of the kid’s arse and pressed his fingers right inside. 

Sex was a mundane way to rebel, but it works well enough. 

And fuck, it was fun. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He knew that _they_ didn’t approve, even though the quality of work at SI hadn’t changed one dot, or rather, it had improved, but it could never match the growing reputation of its CEO. 

He knew there were better ways to defy his father, even in death, but the thing was, he _liked_ being CEO of SI, and if he did a 180 and declared that he was an Omega, he would lose the company. No doubt about it. 

It was one thing for an Omega to run a general store, and quite another for one to be running the leading weapons manufacturing company on the planet. 

Not to mention the ridiculous number of people he would piss off. 

At least no one could take the company away from him in any capacity. If they found out that he was Omega and declared it to the public, then Tony could sue them for oh, slander, maybe? 

He’d still have to be tested, because something like that is a pretty serious accusation, but he could find some way to bypass that. Right? He’d have to ask Pepper. Pepper could do anything. He, on the other hand, could not. 

Yes, he was admitting that. To himself, if not out loud. 

See? He was maturing. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything was fine and dandy, in fact, right up until Obadiah suggested that he go to Afghanistan to sell the Jericho missiles, eighteen years later. He gladly went. He was actually becoming sick of the flashy lifestyle, not that it wasn’t amusing. Well, not sick of it. He just wanted to get away from it all. Just have a bit of a break, so he didn’t have to put up all fronts all the time. 

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea. 

Either that, or it was the best idea ever. 

Well, that’s what he told Pepper. And why wouldn’t she believe him? He came back with the armour and a way to put SI back on the great path. Or to forge a new one. 

He’ll settle for it being a bit of both.


	10. Woo Notes and pictures! Yay fun times

I sobbed over this for an hour trying to make it all work. Theoretical genetics is hard. I hope you can read it. The fancy letters (I got bored and was having fun) are all 'X' and 'Y'

I will add more images later as I finish them.


	11. Bastardise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What happened?”  
> “You became unconscious.”  
> “No, not that.” James shifts under the gaze of his shrink who doesn’t stop asking unusual questions. His shoulder aches. “What happened before that? I can remember things, I was bonded. I was pregnant. What happened? Because there’s nothing now.”  
> “Your mate abandoned you, James, you have been told this.”  
> “No one would ever abandon a bond mate!” He roars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this bit’s in present tense. I’m likely to slip in and out as the story progresses because I’m writing a Thorki (And a Clint/Coulson) fic right now that’s all in present tense and it’s screwing with my head and I personally like the tense. It’s nicer.  
> Translations in end notes

1944-2007

There isn’t even a beeping machine. He thinks he might be dead. _Should_ be dead. But it hurts too much to be dead, everyone says it’s so peaceful, death. He draws in a shuddering breath, and even that hurts. He opens his eyes, pain. It’s the bright kind of pain; literally, he can see the sky, and the sun is reflecting off the clouds and the snow and it’s all white, piercing, burning, except where his blood cuts gashes in the rime, aching wounds that match the ones he can feel in his left side and back, head, legs, he’s lacerated all over. 

Maybe it's a hospital room. It smells clean enough. It’s white enough. But it’s too quiet. No beeping machines. And it’s cold. 

So. 

He’s outside. His eyes have adjusted, there’s a large splotch of black near his feet, rocks, then. Rocks and snow. Big rocks, _mountainous_ rocks, and snow. 

Where the hell is he? 

He clenches his fingers into the ground, and it gives easily, the cold burning the skin of his right hand, but he can’t feel his left. He’s probably going to lose the fingers to frostbite if he can’t feel them. How long was he out? 

He’s hungry, so at least four (five?) hours. 

He aches inside, too. He’s lost something important, can’t fell bits of himself. Important bits. He can’t feel the rough press of Someone’s life against his own, and it’s left this great big hole in his stomach that aches to be filled with something more substantial than his unborn child, although he’d be lucky to keep it at this rate. (And yes, he knew he had been pregnant and hadn’t told that Someone (he can’t remember the name for the life of him). He wasn’t going to let that idiot waste his life on something stupid simply because he had been pulled from duty. 

Wait. 

Where is Someone? 

Why is he at the bottom of a dirty great chasm without Someone by his side? 

He lifts a hand to rub the last of the sleep from his eyes, and it comes away damp. He coughs, laughs without emotion. 

God. What was he thinking, putting so much of himself in Someone’s hands? If he can’t remember them, then they mustn’t’ve been a very good mate. 

He puts his hands on the ground by his waist, pushes himself up so he’s sitting, except maybe his left hand is more numb than he thought it was, because he slips right over and lands on his side, raw flesh pressing into already bloody snow, and he growls in pain when it erupts in agony. He squints his eyes open again against the harshly bleached landscape, sunspots in his vision. 

There’s something more than blood in the snow. He tilts his head to make sense of it. When he understands the gentle slope of a thumb, it all falls into place. 

There’s an arm in the snow. Just a human arm, ripped clean off at the shoulder socket, he can see the sleek curve of the ball of the humerus where it peeks out of shredded muscle and skin. ‘That’s an odd thing to be laying about in the snow’, he thinks calmly, ‘someone will be missing it.’ 

He rolls over and manages to sit up properly, feels a bit dizzy, and looks around. There’s a lot of blood. Some chunks of skin here and there, the arm. A lot of rocks and snow. He thinks that he should find a cave or something to sleep in, because it’s cold now, but it’ll be very much sub-zero at night, and probably windy, and he should have some matches or something. Maybe he’ll find a tree and could light a fire. 

He also thinks, that before he goes anywhere, he should check how badly he’s injured. He feels a bit woozy now, what if he stands and faints? That’ll get him nowhere in a big hurry. 

He starts with his feet, because they're easiest to reach and look at. His boots are intact, which are nice. He wriggles his toes, and thinks that only two or three are broken. Which is also nice. His legs seem alright, only a little banged up, and his right femur is possibly cracked, but he won’t know for sure until he puts weight on it, so instead he puts a handful of snow over where the bruising is to stop it from swelling too much. 

This snow stuff is handy. 

His hips are perfectly fine, his tail’s broken in two places, but not important, the pain from that is mostly from frostbite. Shame. He likes having a tail. There are a few cuts and scrapes on his stomach, and he feels somewhat nauseous, and the skin from his navel right around the left side is a nasty shade of purple, the kind of purple you get when you’ve got really bad internal haemorrhaging. He dares not poke it. Just in case he’s right. 

His chest has a large gash that extends from sternum to the right side of his neck, ragged at the edges, but the bleeding has stopped. 

He lifts his hands to look at them, and only one comes up. He glances to his left, and there’s nothing there. His hand… 

He feels bile rise in his throat and rolls himself onto his side so he doesn’t throw up on his legs. That arm, just a few yards away. It’s his. 

He rolls back and falls to the ground, and promptly blacks out. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

When he next wakes, there are beeping machines. He tries to lift his hand to rub his eyes, but there’s a strap around the wrist, and he can’t move it. He tenses, and jerks it as hard as he can, and the strap snaps with a satisfying crack. He rubs his eyes, and sits up. He doesn’t get dizzy. 

He’s bandaged a lot, and he swings his legs off the side of the bed, and has to awkwardly hunch over to use his teeth to rip the drip out. It slips and leaves a gash, which hurts, but doesn’t bleed much, which is odd, but really not a priority. Last he remembers, he was lying in the bottom of a chasm, bleeding out because he lost an arm. Now he’s in a hospital, which for a hospital is pretty quiet, actually. It’s still a hospital-ly hospital, with white and sinks and curtains and the horrid smell of bleach and death, but where are the sounds of people walking past, the low hum of far away voices? 

He slides off the bed and pulls the bandages wrapped around his stomach away enough for him to peek underneath. The ugly bruising is gone. How long ago was the chasm? Chasm. Where did that come from? 

He backtracks in his mind, and panics a little when he can’t remember anything, at all. 

He turns sharply when he hears a noise behind himself, and dog tags clink against each other as they bounce away from his skin. He itches to look at them, learn his name, know who he is, know why he even has dog tags, but there is a man standing inside the curtain with him, wearing a yellow hazmat suit, helmet and all. 

He isn’t given a chance to say anything, ask any questions, before a gun is levelled at his chest, and he’s shot with a small dart. 

Suddenly, the floor’s quite comfortable. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

He’s slapped into awareness by a tall man holding a needle filled with a clear liquid. He’s back on the gurney, strapped down across his chest and legs this time, too. “Hast du gut geschlafen?”(1) 

He snarls and struggles away. He really does try. 

A shorter man with glasses appears behind the first man. “Please don’t anger him, he is all that remains of my old research, and is so far my greatest success.” The short man says, probably in English for his benefit, heavy accent and all. The tall man scowls and hands the needle over with what seems like great reluctance. He is addressed next. “Welcome, James Barnes. My name is Doctor Zola. I do apologise for your treatment, but it’s for your own safety, I promise. The less you move, the less chance I have of accidentally desensitizing your entire chest to pain.” 

“What are you doing?” His voice is ragged from lack of use. 

“This is just a continuation of your development.” The contents of the needle are ejected into the IV in his arm. It’s cold and burns when it goes into his blood stream. “It is both a shame and an advantage that there has been complete separation of the arm from the scapula. I will have to fit a new shoulder joint and integrate it to the bones of the shoulder before it can be replaced. However the super-soldier serum that is already in your body will ensue that melding of the adamantium and bone will be efficient and non-toxic.” 

What? They were going to do what? “Forgive me, but, what?” 

“I will have to reinforce, and even replace parts of your shoulder with a metal called adamantium in order to fit a new arm. The metal is toxic to humans, however I was able to gather recent information of a procedure to bind adamantium to the skeleton of a being called Weapon X. It seems that biological regeneration at a rate faster than that of a normal human is essential for this procedure to work.” The man waved the taller person back over, and he came with a tray, and assortment of tools on its surface. He closed his eyes when he saw sharp things, to calm himself. These people are trying to help him. They are giving him a whole new arm without asking for anything (not that he had anything anymore) in return. “I have already given you cocaine for the pain, and I will give you more in an hour, but you must be conscious for this, so I don’t do any further permanent damage to your body. I really do wish it was some other way.” 

The doctor takes something off the tray, he could hear it clatter, and he grunts when he feels a needle press into the skin of his shoulder, deeper, deeper-he permits a yell to escape his throat, not that he had a choice in the matter, when he feels the tip dig into what bone is left in his shoulder. A second, and then a third needle follow the first, in different places. He briefly wonders how needles are going to help bind metal to bone, but then it feels like his entire shoulder is on fire, or melting, and there’s the smell of burning flesh, and he’s screaming himself hoarse, fingers scrabbling against the stainless steel of the gurney. 

He is fortunate enough to black out. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“What happened?” 

“You became unconscious.” 

James is sitting in a chair, and he’s more or less certain that he’s never felt more… shit, in his life. He’s been awake for less than an hour, and he’s already had about six blood tests done, and he’s been grilled by a shrink. 

“No, not that.” James shifts under the gaze of said shrink who doesn’t stop asking unusual questions. His shoulder aches. “What happened before that? I can remember things, I was bonded. I was pregnant. What happened? Because there’s nothing now.” 

“Your mate abandoned you, James, you have been told this.” 

“No one would ever abandon a bond mate!” He roars, rising in his seat. He takes a breath in, shuddering in his sudden anger. He feels hollow now, despite the extra weight from the adamantium, like someone’s carved everything out of his chest and replaced it with cotton wool. He sits back down when the anger suddenly drains, and he’s so tired. “What about my child?” He did notice that they didn’t mention that at all, even though he’s asked too many times to count. He knows he’s not carrying it anymore, call it a… mother’s instinct. He shivers. That’s a weird thought. 

“It lives.” 

“It?” He doesn’t even have the energy to get angry that he’s been lied to about something so important. He can't even be indignant that they're calling his child an 'it'. 

“This is an unusual case, James. You will get it when we can know that it is safe.” 

“Safe?” He echoes. “What could possibly-” 

“Now is not the time for that, James. We will explain what is happening with your child when the occasion arises. The more pressing matter is that your mate abandoned you. Does this not make you angry?” 

“No.” He doesn’t really feel anything. He can’t even remember their name, what’s the point? 

“Do you want to be angry about it?” 

“No.” 

“Then how do you feel about it?” 

He thinks about it, comes up blank when the only thing he remembers about his mate are the dog tags around his neck, which have been confiscated until further notice, actually, and the fact that they had something to do with him waking up lying in the snow with his own arm a few feet away. “I don’t feel anything about that.” It’s probably the most truthful thing he’s said all day. It kind of scares him. Just a little. 

“What about for your child then? It wasn’t just you who was abandoned. Your mate didn’t even care that you were with child, he left you anyway, probably knowing full well that you wouldn’t survive.” 

Bucky thought about that, and found himself agreeing with the psychologist. What person would ditch their own kid, even with a reason? 

“We promise that we’ll find out who it was, and we’ll help you find them.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“We’re just going to put you in a trance, okay James? To see if your subconscious can remember anything.” 

“Okay.” He clasps his hands together, feels the elegant curve of cold metal twined between the fingers of his right hand, and the soft press of human flesh between the fingers of his left. 

“So, if you could just relax, and close your eyes for me.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Is it just me, or is my subconscious really stupid?” 

“Your mental blocks are thicker than we anticipated, so more digging is required than usual.” 

He’s sitting in the shrink’s chair again, waiting patiently to be put in a trance again. He doesn’t really mind too much, things happen when he’s in a trance, and he wakes up anywhere between an hour, to a week later. It’s nice, it makes him forget what he’s lost, but also makes him hyperaware of what he’s leaving behind, his child, who he had seen twice now, a beautiful little girl with short, fiery tufts of hair. What was worrying was that each time she was suspended in a glass tube, attached to so many tubes and wires that Bucky could hardly see her. 

“Can I spend time with my daughter when I wake up, please?” 

“Yes, you can. She will actually reach the date she was due to be born in three days, so we will make sure that you are awake by then.” 

“Thank you.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

He wakes up two days later, and he is given his dog tags back, as well as a set of clothes that make it look like he’s been somewhere asides from a hospital in the past month. He sits in the room they’ve given him, and looks at his dog tags. One has his name on it, and he’s not surprised at that, but the other belongs to a person called Steven G Rogers. Maybe that was the name of his mate? It was likely, but that name wasn’t exactly a great help. Two and a half billion people on earth, and he’s supposed to be looking for a Steven Rogers? 

Yeah right. 

“James?” There’s a soft knock on his door and he hastens to push the ID tags under his clothing. 

“Come in.” 

The man comes in, wearing a lab coat and glasses and gloves and starts talking to him. The words sound wrong and sharp, but his mind supplies words, makes the sounds into coherent sentences. He replies without thinking, the man says something else, and he snaps himself out of it enough to think that something’s wrong. 

“Why can I speak Russian?” 

The man replies in the language. “Whilst you were in a trance, we fed you information, a little bit at a time. You should be able to speak the most common languages. There is also other necessary information that has been implanted.” 

This doesn’t freak him out as much as it should. If they’ve been feeding him information, have they been getting him to do things? 

“Oh,” he says instead, “alright.” 

“You may see your daughter now, if you want.” 

If he wants. 

What a stupid thing to say. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It’s funny, he thinks, how he’s put into trances and cryogenic machines and has daily blood tests run on him, and it’s none of that that breaks him, rather it’s… nothing. 

One day he just falls to the floor, clutching his chest, screaming. It feels like he’s been torn apart, frozen, set alight, everything. Just everything. 

And nothing. 

He’s aware of his daughter pushing him, but only just vaguely. It’s not important. Something big has happened, someone’s not there anymore, but he doesn’t even know who it is that isn’t there, so maybe that’s why he’s not dead. Maybe he’s not dead because he’s still got his daughter to care for. 

People come and very quickly stuff him back in his own body, force him into a trance, and when he wakes up, he’s numb, but not dying. 

His daughter barrels into his arms, holds him tightly to her body, and gives him a stern telling off in Russian. 

He knows she’s just worried. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Mat!” (1) 

“Look at how you’ve grown, sweetie.” James coos to his daughter when she launches herself into his arms. She’s a tiny child, and he lifts her easily so she’s on his shoulders. 

“I learnt how to break a man’s wrist yesterday.” She says proudly. 

“Did you now?” He isn’t even surprised by this. Since he woke up, that’s all his life has been, he doesn’t know any better, and so doesn’t expect anything else. 

“Yes!” She swings her legs lightly and they bounce off his chest. “You only need ten kilograms of force if it is applied correctly.” 

“So if you jump on their arm you might just break it, is that it then?” He laughs when she slides backwards and flips to the ground. She kicks his shin. “Alright, I’ve got to go see Dr Zola about my shoulder, it’s been aching lately. Run along and learn how to break elbows, or whatever’s next.” 

She giggles and tells him that it’s ankles, and he honestly fears for his life. 

“Alright.” He stoops and kisses her bright red hair. “Have fun, Natasha.” 

“Oh, I will.” She says sagely. She’s gone in a flash. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Whilst I am comfortable with going out on my own to the far reaches of nowhere, I do however, draw a line when it comes to my daughter. She’s ten, I will not send her out unsupervised.” 

“What do you propose then?” They don’t argue with him. They learnt not to when he refused to give up his dog tags again. 

“I’ll go with her as back up. Once we are in Warsaw, I’ll stay in the safe house, and she can do what she needs to do, but I’ll be there as a safety net of sorts.” 

He can tell that they know what he says is making sense. Natasha is nearly as good as he is in technique, but she lacks experience. She needs someone to nudge her in the right direction if she gets lost, but her stubbornness usually means that she doesn’t just listen to anyone. 

“Very well, you will both leave tomorrow.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Hmm,” 

“What?” 

“Can I say that it’s too quiet, or will that jinx us?” 

“You tell me, you’re the one with forty years of undercover experience.” 

“Oh, come on, we’ll say fifteen. Because if we’re logging all the time that we were in cryo, then you’ve got forty too.” 

“Thirty three, I didn’t start going into cryo until I was seven. They weren’t sure what it’d do to my development, remember?” She has that ‘oh God, mum, you’re so stupid’ tone, and James laughs. 

“I’ll give that to you.” He pauses. “It’s too quiet.” 

As if on cue, someone opens a car door, and the vehicle blows up. Rather spectacularly. 

“Oh yeah, you say something and it all goes to shit. Thanks mat.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

They share quarters, not for a lack of space, but for comfort and security. Well, they share when they’re out of cryogenics. 

“Hey Tash, do we know anyone called Steve?” The name rings a bell, a rather dim one in the back of his mind, given, and it’s sort of on one of his dog tags. 

“Not personally.” She sleeps on the bunk above him, because he tosses in his sleep and has fallen out of bed before. She sleeps like a log. A very sensitive, easy to wake log, given. 

“Then who do we know that’s names Steve?” 

“Captain America.” She says, as if it’s the most obvious thing on earth. 

“Oh.” He fingers the tags with his left hand, hearing then clink against each other. “I didn’t know that.” 

“James!” She exclaims. “That was like, the first file I ever read.” The bunk creaks as she shifts to look at him over the lip of the bed. “Rogers, Steven G. Born July 4th 1914, service number 98-” 

“Okay, I get it, you have a freaky good memory.” He pulls the tags off over his head and passes them up to Natasha. “But this.” 

“Oh.” 

“That sounds about right.” 

“You had-” 

“Most likely.” 

“With Captain America.” 

“Apparently.” 

“And the chances that he’s my sire are?” 

“Well, you see, when people get amnesia, it tends not to skip things like sex and other things like that just for the hell of it.” 

“Just take a guess please?” 

“Probably pretty high.” 

“Neat.” She drops the tags onto his chest, and groans when she stretches out in her bed. “Every kid’s fantasy to be Captain America’s kid, right?” 

“Is it?” 

“God, no. He’s dead, remember? Who wants a dead father?” 

He might just chuckle at that a little. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“That was some shot.” 

He can’t deny that Natasha’s getting better than him—and catching up on him in age. 

“Not bad, I guess.” She’s also getting far too mature for his liking. Too… serious. They’re sitting around waiting to go back into cryogenics; this is their catch up time, now. 

“Doesn’t any of this bother you?” 

“Does a bird not fly south for winter because it simply feels like not doing so?” She retorts. She won’t meet his eyes. “We know no better, mat. Of course it bothers me. Setting a hospital on fire to kill one man? Unnecessary, and a waste, completely unforgivable, but where would we turn if we left, even if we could?” 

James didn’t want to entertain the notion; she was right. “You have grown up so quickly,” he says sadly, reaching out to hold her close. His breath ruffles her hair when she relaxes into his grip, “for a girl who wasn’t supposed to be born.” 

Dr Zola appears in the doorway, and James thinks the man looks old and weary. “It is time.” 

They stand as one, and James nuzzles behind her clipped ear, presses a kiss to the skin. “See you on the other side.” 

“Ya tebya lyublyu.”(3) 

“Me too, Tash.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Welcome back.” Natasha blinks her way into fluorescent lighting, flinching against the harshness of it all. She should be used to this, she’s only been doing it for nineteen years after all. “It is 2003. There are clothes and food on the table over there.” She does a double take. Ten years. That’s probably the longest gap she’s had. 

“The cold war is over, with no major causalities.” 

She looks around. She knows the room well. It’s as white as fresh snow, and just as bright. There are three tables, she woke on one, one is empty, and the third always has food and clothes on it. There is nothing else in the room save for two doors, one leads to the rest of the facility, and the other to a supply room that contains cleaning materials, weaponry, and medical supplies. “Where’s James?” He was always in the room when she woke. He isn’t there. 

“Please eat something, and then we can talk.” 

She gets up, pulls a shirt over her head—they’re always next to naked when they go into the cryo machine—and then picks up a piece of fruit, bites into it, swallows, and then pins the scientist with her best death glare. He withers under it, despite being twice her age. 

He caves rather easily. “There was an emergency and we had to send him out into the field, regrettably, he was killed.” 

“Regrettably?” She somehow, manages to keep her throat clear. “My mother dies, and all you can say about that is regrettable? How _dare_ you?” 

The man stutters, and flees the room. 

“Natasha, you know by now that terrifying messengers is hardly satisfying.” 

“It does me well enough.” She doesn’t even look at the man who’s talking to her. She doesn’t particularly care. 

“We have one last mission for you, and then we can supply you with whatever you want, to do whatever you want with the rest of your life.” 

“Why should I do it?” 

“We have the means to make you do it even if you don’t accept.” 

She weighs the outcomes. She highly doubts that they will let her go that easily, but she could take off. She’s not leaving anyone behind this time, so she has nothing to worry about. “Okay.” 

“This is Drakoff, you know him. His daughter is about to make a breakthrough in her branch of science, and it is not in the world’s best interest to know this yet. You just need to kill her,” he hands her a manilla folder, “and make it look like an accident.” 

She opens the file and walks back to the table with the food, reaching for something to bite into. Budapest. Interesting. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Govno.”(4) Killing Drakoff’s daughter was simple enough. In a lab there are so many things to go wrong. So she switched a beaker of barium chloride for sulphuric acid, could’ve happened to anyone. 

But now she’s nose to nose with the pointy end of the stick—literally. 

“Drop the gun.” The man at the other end of the stick says. She doesn’t see any reason to argue. 

“What are you waiting for?” She demands. There’s blood in her hair and bile in her mouth, and she doesn’t care anymore. “Go on, shoot me.” 

He still hesitates, and they’re running out of time; she can hear the wailing of the police sirens and fire engines, and the arrow’s shaking between her eyes. 

“Do it!” She screams, she’s not sure which language it’s in, but he doesn’t do it, he’s still in limbo, and she grabs the arrow and presses it forwards. “Coward.” She spits. He jerks it out of her grip, slashing her hand open. He has a hold of her arm, and is dragging her out of the hotel room, to the stairs, and up and up and up. 

They jump. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Dick head.” 

“I prefer Clint, I think.” 

“I prefer what I want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) German, lit. Have you good sleep, but that’s their grammar. Nice, huh? Basically asking Bucky if he had a good sleep, but not in the nice way. LIke, the tone of his voice would've been nasty, and he doesn't know Bucky, and uses 'du' which is the informal way of saying 'you'. If you had a stranger over at your house, you would say "Haben Sie gut geschlafen?" GERMAN  
> (2) Mat—Russian kid’s slang for mum or mother, because well… technically…  
> (3) Ya tebya lyublyu—I love you (Because you can’t grow up in some weird psych ward without loving your own father… mother, whatever) If any of you can speak Russian better than Google translate, please tell me if this is wrong, and I’ll fix it.  
> (4) Govno—shit, interjection
> 
> Cocaine was used as a painkiller/local anaesthetic up until about 1960, when they realised that it wasn’t too good for people and traded it for Opiates, like Heroin. Heroin is only available for use in hospitals and must have two people witness the administering of the drug (UK), Morphine and Codeine are still widely used. All four drugs are related, however only Codeine can be bought over the counter. Morphine must be prescribed, and only for special cases, and even then, it is rarely used outside clinics/hospitals.  
> Note, this is an awful and cobbled together history of medicines through the ages, I just thought some of you might freak out when Zola said that he used Cocaine as a painkiller (which is stupid, because it was mostly used as local anaesthetic for nose/eye surgeries, and was used once or twice for spine operations in 1885. Maybe he knows something I don’t???)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And finally, there’s Tony. Iron Man. It doesn’t matter either way. Long story short, Tony’s the most abrasive Alpha Steve’s ever met. It’s probably blasphemy for Steve to say that he wants him, but he does.  
> Wants him for his team, wants him for himself. Maybe he’s ill. He shouldn’t want an Alpha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I have too many Steve feels. Sorry it's so short, I know I promised someone that this would be longer, but I couldn't edit it much because I liked it and it fit well and I had nothing to really expand on.  
> Might be a bit of a wait until the next chapter, but it's funny and ridiculous and made purely because I felt like it.

2011-2012 

It took effort to get up in the mornings, in a way it never had. His alarm went of, bright and cheery, but any sunlight seemed to fall short of the window. 

He felt around for something, someone, as if he expected there to be someone under the sheets with him, maybe he would say good morning, or hello to them, coddle them up in his arms just because he could, but the rest of the bed is cold, a harsh and unforgiving wasteland as always. 

He didn't have the energy to be disappointed. He could only be glad that the war was over; he didn't have to live in constant fear for his pack's life. 

Days were positively dull. Time slipped through his fingers like sand from an hourglass. One moment, he would pick up his paintbrush to spread something on the canvas in front of him-what, he doesn't know. He can't seem to get it right anymore-and the next, it's lunchtime, and he's done nothing, except drip paint back onto his palette, and then he went to fetch lunch, and suddenly it was night, and he's not hungry so he did eat, but he can't remember doing so, and he sat at his kitchen table, and stared at photos of the howling Commandoes until he woke with a snap and its two in the morning and he wasn't in bed. But at least he wasn't crouching behind a rock until his ankles ached and his knees locked up. At least the war was over. 

He listened to the news in the morning on the radio, listened to the causal fade and crackle, and listened to the weather. Snow was the forecast, the walk to the shops won't be nice, but at least he's not camping in it. At least the war was over. 

The world continued to spin as if he wasn't there, as if his presence was inconsequential, and it was. He's not an active participant anymore. He was a shell, and he lacks purpose. So he sat on a park bench, and listened to the bird song, let the time slip through his fingers and uselessly watched the people walk past, all buried in their own little technological devices, hardly looking a yard ahead. All the living are dead, he thought, everyone who mattered, Bucky, the Commandoes. 

And the dead are all living, these people in their little worlds, like zombies, plodding about doing their things. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Apparently they won.   
But at least the war was over. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

"Would you like a refill there?" 

Steve glanced up from his cup, the dregs in the bottom that glistened dully in the fluorescent cafe lighting. The pretty waitress that worked there everyday but Wednesday and Saturday was standing there, holding a pot of coffee. He pulled his jacket sleeve up a touch to check his watch. "No, sorry. I'll be late for work if I do." His fingers itched to take her wrist and smell it, but he still wasn't sure if that was done in this century. 

It was ten to nine on a Monday morning. He really would love to stick around a while longer, chat to the waitress-Ashley, her name was-and drink coffee, he's got enough money to tip her, but if he does stay, he thinks too much, and it's not good for him to think too much. And he'd actually be late for work. "Thanks anyway." He picked his mug up and placed it on her tray, along with a few dollars, resolved to come back in the afternoon and get and made his way through the chairs and tables towards the road. He was instantly swept up by the tide of people bustling to work, too busy to even pause and talk to a waitress for ten minutes. Such inconsiderable behaviour irked him. 

He jogged across the road, just catching the green light, and turned down the next street and then immediately into (grocery store). He shed his jacket and hung it up in the back room with his wallet in the pocket, and returned to the cash registers. 

"I'm not late, am I?" He slipped behind a register and logged in. 

"Nah, quiet mornin' today." Mr Lee was sitting at the next register over. He owned the store, and had for the last fifty years. He was one of the few (read; the only) people Steve knew who had been alive before he went into the ice, and that made Steve comfortable, because apparently there were tics from the forties that not even someone who grew old through the decades could get rid of, like scenting territory. The whole store smelt exactly like Mr Lee, and that too, made Steve comfortable. It was familiar, safe, and warned anyone who came in that tomfoolery would not be tolerated. 

Most other shops he went into reeked of bleach and pine, and he hated it. 

Steve liked working for Mr Lee, the work itself gave him a mundane way for him to forget himself, the repetitiveness of the job giving him the opportune way to immerse himself in the twenty first century without seeming unusual or rude when approaching people for a conversation. The work also gave him a fair bit of exercise, as everyone else working at the store were young kids, still school age, too young to reach the top shelves, or in the case of Mr Lee and his lovely wife, too old to stock shelves, it left Steve with literally all of the heavy lifting, and he relished it. It was a quick job too, as he didn't need a ladder to reach the top shelves. 

But when it was just he and Mr Lee, it gave him an insight to what the war, and he, was like to the eyes of a civilian. 

"That's good." Steve stretched his arms behind his back, clasped them, and raised them as high as he could before letting them go. "Do any shelves need stocking?" 

"Not now, but milk was walking out all weekend, so before you leave, just top the fridges up for me, will you?" 

"No problem." 

"Also there'll be a delivery of perishables later this afternoon, and that'll need to be packed into the cold room. 'M sure the delivery boys can handle it, but its so much quicker when you give 'em a hand." 

"That won't take long at all, sir." 

"Oh, I'm 'sir' now, am I?" 

"You've always been 'sir'." 

"Not for a long time, kiddo." 

"If it makes you feel better, neither have I." 

Mr Lee laughed at that. "Good sense of humour you've got. Pups these days have no respect, you know? Back in the good ol' days, yer could give a kid a good hidin' if they gave you cheek, now, their parents try ter exorcise you if you so much as try to tell them off." 

"They don't even respect soldiers, either." He had seen far too many people completely disregarding soldiers, taunting them even, at ceremonies, when they should have nothing but the utmost respect for the Alphas, Betas and Omegas who risk their lives and packs for their country. 

"No, they don't." Mr Lee said sadly. "Are you a military man, Steven?" 

"I used to be." Now, he's not too sure what he is. "What about you? You must've been the right age to serve in World War Two." He paused, and then realised his mistake. "Forgive me, that was rude." 

"No, no. Not at all." Mr Lee waved it off casually. "I was a strapping young lad of seventeen when the war started in '39. I turned eighteen later that year, and I, like nearly every other idiot kid on the block, went down to that enlistment tent to sign up. They nearly dismissed me on sight, and then _did_ dismiss me when they realised I had asthma." He shrugged and removed his glasses to clean them. "I thought I'd give it another go, just one more, maybe they'd have a use for a weedy little asthmatic. That was at the Stark expo in '40, must've been a Sunday night. My mate thought I was crazy." He paused, and Steve forced himself to nod. 

He remembered that perfectly, but he wasn't eighteen, he was twenty-four, and his mate thought that he was just as stupid. 

"So I got in the tent, and this German Beta, why he was German still confuses me, well he saw me, and he apologised, said I should've been there five minutes ago. So I left, went home, and married Joan instead." 

"I'm sorry." Steve murmured. 

"What for? That was decades before you were even thought of! Besides, whenever I feel a bit down, I just remember how I was five minutes late to becoming Captain America!" 

Despite himself, Steve smiled. "It can't have been that great, being Captain America." 

"Well, we all knew that, didn't we? But it was something that every young Alpha dreamed of. He was the perfect specimen, wasn't he? Of course we wanted to be him. That Omega of his, Dame Carter, must've been a lucky lass." 

Steve bit his tongue to stop himself saying anything. Of course the world was fed that idyllic image. It wouldn't have done for the Captain to have run off with a male Beta now, would it? 

"How old would he be, if he didn't die in '42?" 

"Ninety eight." Steve didn't have to think about it. That fact was weighing heavy on his mind. Two more years and he'd be a hundred, or was it twenty-seven? He wasn't sure, but he knew he should be in college or something, not at the beck and call of a super secret military organisation. 

"Well, what do you know?" Mr Lee stretched his back a little and sagged in his chair, and the glass sliding doors opened silently, letting in some of the cold, late autumn wind. Steve automatically tensed and flicked his gaze up. It was just a lady, come to do her shopping. Steve twitched in his seat. Customer. 

There was a delay with the delivery van, so by the time Steve clocked off, it was nearly seven, and he was sorely hoping for the cafe to be open. He thought that Ashley might still be there. He declined pay for the four hours of overtime, and took his groceries, what he received as pay instead of money-it hadn't been hard to convince Mr Lee to do that, as trading was simpler than paying then buying-zipped his jacket up, and headed around the corner to the cafe. 

Ashley wasn't there, but he bought a coffee to go and ducked into the underground station just down the road. 

Sometimes, he almost wished for something violent to happen, but during others, mundane was nice. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Mundane was nice indeed. 

He liked Director Fury. He really did. The man was straightforward and a little old fashioned, and he didn't beat around the bush. He said what needed to be done, and so Steve would do it. 

Steve just hadn't been expecting to be put in an aeroplane with a slightly obsessive Alpha who felt compelled for some reason or another to express his admiration for Captain America, which was nice, but Steve was a different person than he used to be. As Captain America, he had lost too many people. He was amazed with himself that he could even consider a mission where putting the suit on was a possibility, no matter how slim. 

Certainly, he would do it if he was asked, he would do whatever was necessary to save lives and his country, but that didn't mean that it was who he was anymore, and he doubted that there was much that would change his mind. 

It’s a debacle, the Loki Incident, but everything turns out okay. He’s given a team, and they work together with varying degrees of compliancy. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what he expected for such a shamble of a team, for a team that was literally thrown together at the last minute, full of people who probably shouldn’t still be alive. 

There’s Thor, who knows battle and knows command and knows how to take orders like a soldier, and that’s good, because he does what he has to, and he does what he’s told. Thor, who comes from another planet, worshipped as a god by Northern Europe, from where the Cube came from. Loki’s brother. 

Black Widow and Hawkeye are cut from the same fabric, they both smell like each other, and they both have stupid ideas that get things done. At least they tell Steve what they’re going to do. 

Really, who gets Steve to launch them into the air and call it ‘fun’? 

Who jumps off a building? 

_Who crashes a plane when he probably could’ve landed it?_ A small part of his mind asks. Okay, so he can’t talk about stupid ideas. 

Then there’s Bruce, who nearly breaks Fury’s ship accidentally, who’s more in control of himself than anyone else Steve has met before. Bruce, who finds Loki for them, and doesn’t feel the need to boast about it. Quiet, Beta Bruce. 

Steve likes him already. 

And finally, there’s Tony. Iron Man. It doesn’t matter either way. Long story short, Tony’s the most abrasive Alpha Steve’s ever met. It’s probably blasphemy for Steve to say that he wants him, but he does. 

Wants him for his team, wants him for himself. Maybe he’s ill. He shouldn’t want an Alpha. 

Maybe he’s ill because Tony’s not a team player, not really. But, well. It’s complicated. 

All the best things are. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The police in New York are arrogant, and don’t listen to him until they see him knock out several of the aliens. They leap to follow his instructions then, and he wonders what kind of backward century he’s in when a Beta doesn’t obey a direct command from an Alpha for his own safety. 

Steve doesn’t stop, he runs to the next thing. 

He and Thor take out a squadron, and it’s the most alive Steve’s felt in months. Maybe he should’ve suited up before this, just jumped back into the fray. He hadn’t been afraid of fighting. He’d missed it. 

The next thing he dealt with was where the Chitauri had invaded a coffee shop, and he’s so turned around, so involved with what’s right in front of his nose, that he doesn’t realise that it’s the one that he frequents until he’s inside it. 

He manages not to get blown up, gets thrown out a window, but he saves all the people inside. One of the aliens leaps on his back and goes for the head, and he struggles with it. They’re smaller than he is, but still very strong, with an exoskeleton and long, thick fingers, and he temporarily sacrifices his cowl to dislodge it. He takes a minute to catch his breath, calls for Thor on the comm, and looks around at the damage. The top floor of the building had been blown out, but otherwise it was unscathed. The people are emerging from the building, and he’s about to tell them to get back inside until the fighting’s over, but when he looks over the crowd, mouth already open to give the order, he sees Ashley, and he sees Mr Lee, meets their eyes, and knows he can’t go back to what he was doing before. Can’t go back to living. 

It’s all right. He’s not sure if he wants to or not. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Tony flies himself and a bomb into the portal, and Steve’s heart stops when he tells Natasha to close the portal. It starts again when he sees the flask of red and gold, against the backdrop of dark thunderheads, and he’s never been happier to see someone alive as he did when Tony asked him what happened. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“We won.”   
Without losing anything.   
He’s not sure which one is more important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Stan Lee gets an honourary cameo in the movies, so I thought he deserved an honourary cameo in fan-fiction too.


	13. Interlude II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s called Movie Night, because Psycho-Analysis Night seemed too intimidating and Bruce got flinchy a lot, and Let’s-Share-Life-Stories-and-Jokes-and-Alcohol-Because-None-of-us-Will-Ever-Admit-That-We-Can’t-Sleep-Without-Nightmares-Anymore-But-We-Occasionally-Play-Ludo-and-Cards-and-Watch-Movies Night is too long and has a really shitty acronym.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some more angst before it gets funny and stupid.

Post-New-York is an odd time.

Limbo.

They sort of go their separate ways, but all end up in the same place (mostly) sooner or later. Bruce has nowhere to go, so Tony takes him home, like he is some pup to shepherd around, and Bruce doesn’t seem to mind.

Natasha and Clint go with S.H.I.E.L.D., both a little downcast and quiet. They both have been since Phil’s death was called.

Thor never comes back, not for a while, he has things to do in Asgard. Being a Alien Super Prince has it’s responsibilities, it is assumed.

And Steve goes back to Brooklyn, to his little flat, and potters around, waiting for the next time he has to suit up, irritable and impatient.

Bored.

They end up in Stark Tower, with nowhere else big enough to keep them all comfortable and from fighting, it’s only natural that it’s there.

Then it happens again, and again, so they stop fighting it, and make it a Thing.

It’s called Movie Night, because Psycho-Analysis Night seemed too intimidating and Bruce got flinchy a lot, and Let’s-Share-Life-Stories-and-Jokes-and-Alcohol-Because-None-of-us-Will-Ever-Admit-That-We-Can’t-Sleep-Without-Nightmares-Anymore-But-We-Occasionally-Play-Ludo-and-Cards-and-Watch-Movies Night is too long and has a really shitty acronym.

Clint’s starting to smile and laugh more as they move on, think of other things, like Natasha’s recounting of Tony’s refusal to admit that he was dying of heavy metal poisoning once-upon-a-time, and Bruce’s tales of other worlds, where Omegas are revered and at the top of the food chain, because no one there knows that Betas exist, and that female Alphas can bear children. Real, actual places in the middle of Africa.

So they sit around and laugh and get to know each other until something changes.

“Sir, there appears to be a security breach.”

“What, no, Jarvis, is this like last time, where there were smelly workmen in my elevator?” They’ve all turned towards the elevator in question, Nat and Clint have guns trained at it, and Steve’s holding a knife handle first in preparation to throw it.

“Because that was disgusting, and unhygienic, and it smelt awful for days.” The elevator dings. “Who the hell can just walk into one of my elevators without me knowing until they’re up here any… way…” Tony trails off, and it feels like the room simultaneously gets about ten degrees hotter _and_ colder at the same time.

“Hello, Mr Stark.”

No one, not even Tony has a word to say. Until-

Clint breaks the line and strides forwards until he’s nose to nose with Phil Coulson. “You fucker.” He says, spits, in fact. His sides are heaving as if he’s run a marathon. Natasha’s gun quivers, Steve puts the knife down, and they all watch.

Clint’s doing a mighty job at keeping his emotions in check, but even as they watch, they can see him shaking, his fingers clenching around the grip of his gun, tail rigid and low. Hurt and shock and confusion and fright flit across his face in equal measures. Quick as a whip, he slaps Phil across the cheek as hard as he can. 

Phil just stands there and takes it, looking too apathetic for anyone’s liking.

“You fucking bastard!” Maybe he meant to scream the words at Phil, but it only comes out choked and shaky. “You have no— no _idea_ what it’s been like.” Clint’s whole body is shaking now, full of rage and enmity. “We just sit there, at night, empty and half alive, and so _fucking grateful_ that we have each other, and you think it’s okay to just fucking waltz in, just as we’re maybe starting to get better?” 

He turns and nearly runs out of the room, around the corner and out of sight.

The room gets even colder as Natasha glares at Phil before smartly turning away and following Clint.

No one likes how Phil just stands there, still looking to the right slightly, eyes cast at the carpet, exactly as Clint had left him. Just stands there and accepts that maybe he’s lost Clint.

Probably Natasha too.

No one likes to think that maybe Phil’s crying.

Just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I'm really disappointed that none of you have noticed the cameos that everyone is getting.   
> I'll try to make one a chapter.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony wants to touch, just a little, but he’s afraid that if he does, then he’ll break this little bubble, this invincible little world that has put everything else on hold; all that society crap isn’t important whilst they’re sheltered in the tent like this, wrapped in secrets and canvas and each other.  
> He really shouldn’t be doing this. He swore off Alphas when he was fourteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asdfghjkl;  
> This is where it gets better.  
> Funnier.  
> 

Several Months Later 

He wasn't sure how he quite ended up in the passenger seat of a land rover, on the wrong side of the vehicle, might he mention, with two more rowdy Avengers, Clint in the seat behind the driver-Steve. Well, Natasha is there too, but she doesn't really count as rowdy. 

There is a half full bag of gummy snakes by his hip, jammed between his leg and the centre console, and a bottle of coke between his knees. The seatbelt sits on the wrong side of his neck, and it's uncomfortable and weird and he's freaking out every time they pass another car, because he thinks they're going to collide. 

Clint is singing along with the radio, and at least the same crappy music plays in Australia, as the good ol' USA, and Steve's pointing out every little odd thing in sight, and then wondering, out loud, if it's in America or not, dear soul. 

Tony wants to let out a childish sob to indicate his boredom. He's got no technology—banned by Steve Jerkface Rogers—and therefore nothing to do. He's already had a three-hour nap. 

He drums his fingers on his leg, and looks out the window. Maybe the physics is different here, and then he actually does the math and sighs, because its not, and he's still- "Bored!" He says loudly, throwing his arms up. 

Natasha pinches him. “Shh, it’s the point.” 

“But camping? What’s the point?” 

“There is none. It’s a bit of fun. Lighten up, Stark.” Clint pinches him too, and Tony shrinks into the corner. 

“Meanies.” He grumbles. “We could’ve flown out here, you know.” He presses his nose to the window and looks outside. It's green and hilly and there are a lot of trees. He doesn’t recognise any of them, and it's Autumn here and they all still have leaves in various shades of cheery, calm green. He thinks he’s in the land of the devil. 

It’s hot enough. 

“Look, over there.” Steve pulls over, and they’re on the side of a mountain with a good view over the valley. He’s pointing to a small town, sitting on the banks of a river. If it floods, the village, and the cows and… goats? Really? Around it will be in a bit of trouble. 

“It’s like, three houses.” 

“A bit more than that, I think.” Clint says, pulling his sunglasses off. “There’s a general store, five houses, a toilet block, and a pub. A little further away there are four separate campsites, and a cave system.” 

“Creepy.” Tony mutters. 

Clint kicks him. “And flexible.” 

Tony reaches back and hits him, and before Clint can retaliate, Steve grabs both of them, twisting over the centre console to do so. “Children!” 

Tony shakes him off quickly and curls back into the corner. “Let’s just go.” 

Steve makes sure that Clint isn’t going to do anything, and they set off again. 

The campsite they’re using is relatively quiet, next to the river, and bumpy. They park the cars on the ridge, and walk down the hill, only about five metres, but two of that is straight down, to the flatter area by the river. 

They jostle about and manage to set up three tents, and it’s not supposed to rain, so they leave their cooking gear outside. Then it’s not supposed to get dark for several hours, and they’re not hungry. Clint’s already climbed all of the trees in the immediate area, Bruce found the toilets as they drove in, and Natasha has determined that there is nothing like bears or deer or wolves and they’re honestly, quite safe. 

“No wolves?” Steve is honestly surprised, going by his tone. 

“Not all of us grew up in Canada, blondie.” Tony says dryly. He is writing in the sandy soil with a stick. 

“It’s not that, it’s just in Europe, we had to be really careful when we caught meat because the offal would attract wolves.” 

“There aren’t wolves in Australia at all.” Bruce comments, “The next best thing were Thylacines, and the last one died out in 1936.” 

“I remember reading about that.” Steve adds from where he is sitting on the grass, trying to get a campfire started. It’s smouldering gently, with the occasional lick of flame. “It was in the newspapers.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Tony grumbles. 

Steve yelps—the fire had caught, and burnt his wrist. 

They fry sausages and sheep’s kidneys, and eat it around the fire, and then stay up and argue, reaching over each other for choc chip cookies they bought in a town earlier, and jerky strips. 

Tony asks Natasha about what’s between her and Clint, and from there it degenerates into a game of truth or dare. 

Steve should’ve gone to bed hours ago. 

“Oh, come on Bruce, you’re going to defend him on this one? Seriously?” Tony is quite whiny when he needs to be, and even when he doesn’t need to be. 

“I am.” Bruce has removed his glasses, to stop them fogging up now that it’s gotten cold, despite the fire. Natasha and Clint are curled up together, Tony’s leaning against Thor, and Bruce is laying with his feet in Clint’s lap, and his head in Tony’s. Steve feels a little left out. “If people don’t want to disclose information about their Bonds, then they have the right to refuse. 

“Now, just because it turns out that Phil didn’t die, doesn’t mean that Clint is compelled to return to him, Bond or no. It’s his life, and if you use that brain of yours for once, you will remember that Bond-rights have changed.” 

“Well screw you too.” Tony pokes Bruce in the cheek, and laughs. Steve ignores the way that his gut twists, ignores the hollow feeling. This is his team, yes, but his pack is dead. 

“Okay, Steve.” Clint calls over to him, and Steve starts. “Truth or dare?” 

“Truth?” He’s not sure what the dare would entail, but he’s certain that he’s choosing the lesser of two evils. It’s not like he has anything to hide. 

“You ever had a mate?” 

Okay, maybe he has a little to hide. “Yes.” He says, clipped and short. He notices Tony is now sitting up a little straighter. 

“Ooh, who?” 

Steve smiles demurely. “I answered your question.” 

“Yeah, but you don’t just answer a question like that without supplying details.” 

“Nah, he answered it.” Wait, Tony was defending him? “Go on Steve, your turn.” 

“Umm, alright.” He thinks for a moment. “Clint.” 

“Oh, here we go.” Clint groans. 

“Truth or dare?” He’s got a good idea for both. 

“Dare. Bring it on.” 

“Jump in the river.” 

“Fuck you very much.” 

“I didn’t finish.” Steve tuts. “Jump in the river naked.” 

Tony sniggers. “Come on Legolas. Into the river Nimrodel you go.” 

“I hate you all.” Clint declares. “Except the Hulk. He lets me brush his hair.” Clint strips, and walks over to the river. They all abandon the fire and follow him. 

The river’s pretty rocky, and flows rather rapidly, but downstream a little there is a deeper pool, and Steve doesn’t doubt that it’s freezing. 

Clint pokes a toe in carefully and yelps, pulling it back out. His tail’s clamped to his ass firmly, just as his ears are clamped to his head. Tony looks at him sternly and points at the water, and Clint lets out a faked sob and wades out into the river, cursing the whole time. 

“I think Steven said jump, Hawkeye, not meander.” Thor booms merrily. 

Clint mutters something, and dives in from where he is, knee deep. He surfaces quickly, and stands, up to his waist now. “Oh shit, I think my balls are shrinking.” 

Tony roars with laughter. Steve gets him a towel. Clint splashes them all with water when he gets close enough to shake it all over them. 

Back in front of the fire now, and all dry, they conclude that going to bed might be a wise idea. 

It’s a given that Natasha and Clint will share a tent, and they vanish quickly, and the other four are left sitting on the grass awkwardly, trying to figure out how to make this work. 

Tony immediately says that he can sleep with Bruce, and Bruce doesn’t seem to mind, but then Thor thoughtfully points out that he and Steve won’t fit in one of the tents together, and suggests that he and Bruce stay in one tent, and Tony and Steve in the other. 

Tony can’t find an argument about that quickly enough, and Steve’s used to bunking with people he doesn't generally get along with, wait, that’s wrong, he and Tony get on pretty well most of the time, so maybe he’s used to bunking with people who don’t really like him too much, and so that’s how it is. 

They shuffle into the tent and kick their shoes off one at a time, and Steve shimmies himself into his sleeping bag, pulling it as tight around himself as he can. He’s never been good with the cold, once, because his joints would lock up and ache for hours at the very thought of it, so it’s rather ingrained for him to seek out warmth, and now because feeling water freezing around your ankles does something to a man. Tony gets in his just as quickly, but doesn’t huddle himself up so much. Steve stays where he is, even though he’s facing Tony—he’s getting warm now, so it’s pointless moving—and closes his eyes. 

He gets hot at some point and unzips the sleeping bag so he’s got a little room to move and goes back to sleep. 

Something brushes against his waist heavily, and he jerks awake. He can’t just camp without being on constant alert, a habit that has saved his life a few times, so any touch or abnormal noise is more than enough to get him up, but it’s just Tony, who probably rolled over because he was so cold—sleeping bag’s kicked down—and Steve caves to the urge to touch and pulls his limp body closer, tucks him up into a comfortable position under the blanket with him. He won’t admit it, but the bit he misses most is the liberty to do what he wanted whilst in Europe, more than that, he misses knowing that they’re safe, ensconced amongst the trees, out of sight, out of mind. It was there that people didn’t care what happened, didn’t care that he was mated to Bucky, didn’t care that his pack was breaking every social norm at least once a week, as long as they got the job done, that was enough, and they could shut up about what happened between, thank you very much. He does his best not to compare the feel of Tony’s lax body to Bucky’s. There’s a myriad of differences, so many he doesn’t even know where to start, or which one is the biggest. Probably scent. 

He buries his nose behind one of Tony’s ears, and goes back to sleep. 

They haven’t moved an inch when Steve wakes up, and one of his hands are slightly numb, because Tony’s head has been on his upper arm, but he doesn’t mind too much. He listens for a moment to see if he can hear any of the others up, but the tent is still dark, so it’s probably just dawn. The way his body seems to just know what time it is never ceases to amaze him. 

He wills himself to sleep in for a change. 

It’s not too hard. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Dude, what the hell?” Tony pushes Steve as hard as he can, given his position. He’s been awake for some time, being rather selfish and revelling in the feeling of someone touching him just because they could and they cared about him—he wasn’t stupid. He knew that he kicked the sheets around in his sleep, and the consequently rolled over, probably onto Steve, knowing his luck, thus waking Steve up. 

And Steve had taken pity on him, instead of just waking him so he could get back in his own sleeping bag. 

He approved of his sleeping-self’s tactics. 

But he kind of needs to piss now, and it’s well and truly light. 

Steve wakes in increments; he lets out a breath of air and stirs slightly, his arms tighten for a moment and he smiles. And oh God, he’s beautiful. The light filtering through the tent has a greenish tint, lending the ruffled strands of Steve’s hair a lime tinge, disregarding the dark blotches where dew has settled on the outside and is reflecting the light before it gets to them. His eyelashes have a muted curve, and the apex rests on the skin beneath the socket. His lips are still slightly parted, florid, and Tony wants to touch, just a little, but he’s afraid that if he does, then he’ll break this little bubble, this invincible little world that has put everything else on hold; all that society crap isn’t important whilst they’re sheltered in the tent like this, wrapped in secrets and canvas and each other. 

He really shouldn’t be doing this. He swore off Alphas when he was fourteen. 

“Morning.” Steve mumbles. He still hasn’t let go. 

The hand that isn’t under Tony’s head moves from where it is holding him down from the sheer weight over his waist, and comes up to scratch his hair softly. 

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it. But he really has to get up before something happens that they’ll both regret, so he pushes Steve again, but that has no real effect. Steve smooths his hair and shushes him. 

“Steve, let go.” 

Steve just pulls him closer, a big ball of warmth and hard muscle which looks nice but isn’t as comfortable as the softer curves of an Omega, and Tony’s nose is pressed to Steve’s chest, and he bites his lip. Steve smells good. 

Better than good, actually. 

“Sleep, Buck.” Steve insists. 

Tony is nonplussed. Did Steve just… Does Steve think he’s Bucky? Oh yes, Tony’s read the files, how Bucky was Steve’s school friend, and then part of the Howling Commandoes. 

What had happened between them? 

“Oi!” He pokes Steve. This does nothing, so he opens his mouth and sinks his teeth into the hard line of Steve’s jaw. 

That wakes him up. 

His eyes snap open, lashes jumping a quarter of an inch to make way for vibrant colour, and air whistles in through his nose. 

Neither of them move, and it’s the perfect impasse, neither really wants to move, but it’s probably best they do, and it’s stifling, Tony’s got the taste of Steve’s skin on his tongue, and Steve’s got the weight of Tony’s body in his arms, and Tony wants to smother himself and maybe then he’ll wake up from this stupid dream because let’s face it, he wouldn’t go camping if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t sleep in a tent with Rogers if it were below zero outside. Would he? 

Well he’s here now. It’s probably all some figment of his subconsciousness; a well-repressed part of his subconsciousness that should make him want to spend more time than necessary with every Alpha he meets. 

Well fuck it. 

“Let me go.” He growls. Steve’s hands spring away from him, as they would if Tony were on fire, or covered with acid, or better yet, as though he is a snake. The moment he can, he kicks the sleeping bag off and crawls out of the tent in a manner he thinks is angry, but probably isn’t. 

He ignores the catcalls from Clint. He’s not doing a walk of shame. Ducks behind a large tree to empty his bladder, he isn’t walking eighty yards just to use a toilet, and when he comes back, Steve’s up too, looking less than awake, four angry marks bracketing his stupidly perfect jaw, and oh God his hair. 

He can’t help the snigger. Steve’s hair is a mess, like full on bed-head mess, hair sticking out everywhere, in all directions, kind of bed-head. It makes his head look too big, and that’s a problem that Tony should have, not Steve. 

“Alright, you caught me. It’s true. My secret is that I have really bad morning hair.” Steve says. He seems resigned to the fact that his hair resembles a bird’s nest. He pushes a hand through it, and it does nothing to affect the appearance of his hair, and one half is still total flat; a cowlick that spans the entire side of his head. He just walks to the river, kneels on a large rock, and dunks his entire head into the water, and draws it out, sopping wet. He shakes it damp and fixes it, and it falls into its usual place. 

Tony walks over to where Bruce is heating milk and water on a portable gas stove. He is offered coffee, and he accepts, even though it probably tastes awful. The instant kind always does. 

“Do you want a little something for that?” Clint and Natasha have revived the fire, and are heating a frying pan over it, with a plate of bacon and eggs prepared to fry. Clint motions to the bite mark on Steve’s jaw, and Steve stops picking water out of his ears to rubs it self-consciously. 

“It’ll be gone in an hour or two. I’ll be right.” 

Natasha’s eyeing him with a mixture of curiosity, and what seems like blatant displeasure. Steve feels the need to defend himself. 

“I don’t wake up quickly enough, apparently.” He says. 

Natasha and Clint exchange a Look, and Clint throws a handful of bacon into the pan. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Clint throws rocks at them from the other side of the creek and Tony throws some back before he realises that he can’t hit Clint from this distance, and so goes to wade across the river. He’s about to put his foot in it when Clint sings out; “The water is lava!” 

Tony overbalances, and fixes his step so he ends up awkwardly stuck, one foot on the bank, another on a rock, several feet away. He flaps his hands about, and glares at Clint. 

The next rock Clint throws bounces off Bruce’s knee. Bruce shudders and growls, and they all make for the river, skipping from rock to rock in accordance of Clint’s rules, and end up huddled on the other bank. Tony gives a dramatic squawk when Natasha leap-frogs over his head and pushes him into the water. She ends up on the opposite bank entirely dry. They stop next to Clint, Tony last, dragging himself out of the water angrily. 

When they look back, Bruce is doubled over from laughter, rocking back and forth on his back on the grass. 

“Bruce you suck!” Tony shouts. Someone pushes Clint into the river. He grabs Thor and they both topple in. 

“Such a triviality as lava shall not make the son of Odin beg for mercy!” Thor cries as he sinks. 

Clint flounders and gasps for air. “It’s cold!” He howls. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

They sit around the fire again that night, and one by one retire, Steve nudges another log on, and sparks skitter up into the nether, little fireflies of ember and ash, and Steve and Tony watch them fly. It’s just the two of them left; everyone else has escaped the creeping coldness and gone to bed. Steve is just staring up at the moon, knees crooked up under his chin, toes and fingers pointed towards the fire, and Tony’s staring at the fire with the same intensity, but his posture is far more relaxed. 

“I hope no one’s tried vandalising the tower.” Tony says suddenly. “Wait, maybe I do.” 

“What?” It isn’t hard to tear his eyes away from the moon and look at Tony instead. 

“I hope someone’s vandalised the tower.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, normally, I’m a really good deterrent, but people have to realise that I’m not there, and I just want to see the look on their face when they try.” 

“What’ll happen to them?” 

“Hmm, let’s say they’ll be getting a crash course on handling a contact deprived Dumm-E.” Steve blinks. He’s met Dumm-E, at the time the bot had been in time-out, and wearing a party had that declared that the robot was ‘IDIOT’. It was a nice creature, if a little friendly. “Oh.” 

“It also means that I won’t have to calm Dumm-E down when I get back.” 

“I’ll do it.” It was Tony’s turn to blurt out ‘what?’ “I’ll talk to Dumm-E.” 

“He’ll flatten you.” Tony warns. Steve raises and eyebrow and stretches out. He knows that the firelight throws his muscles into relief. “Oh fine.” Tony caves. “I won’t say ‘I told you so’.” 

“Yes you will.” Steve says with a smile. He settles back in the grass, feeling more content and full than he can remember being for a long time. 

It’s the same for the next few days. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

He might argue against it, but he really didn’t mind sharing a tent with Steve, by the time they were on the plane back to America, he didn’t have to worry about his natural scent, because being in such close quarters with Steve for so long had masked his own entirely. 

It was quite a nice scent. 

He falls asleep on Steve’s shoulder in the airport at LA whilst they are waiting for their connecting flight, and Clint takes a photo and posts it on Twitter. He spends the next twenty minutes in the next terminal over telling Pepper that _no_ , nothing happened and never will, God, can’t you just realise that planes are a shitty place to sleep and just calm down, woman! Tell the press or whoever’s asking, oh, Fury?, tell him to shove his eye-patch up— 

She cut him off then, in the way that only she can, and tells him that she’ll deal with it, and to check Twitter for himself. Apparently #TonyandCap is trending. 

A lot. 

Clint is howling with laughter when Tony returns. Even Natasha seems less standoffish than usual. 

Apparently it’s not the only picture he’s posted, so it’s been trending for a few days. Tony thinks he might die from a combination of shame and guilt. 

At least he will never have to explain it to Steve. He’s not quite prepared to have the ‘shipping’ talk with him. 

He think Steve catches wind at the next press conference when some nosy reporter starts asking questions about their pack dynamic. Awkward, personal questions. 

He watches as Steve stiffens minutely, more visible in the line of his tail than anywhere else, before he smiles broadly and fields the question easily. Tony still remembers the words, and not because he’s rewatched the footage about three times, but because the answer was oddly impersonal for such an intimate question.  
 _‘Our pack is very unique, and it’ll surely take us longer than a few months to really sort things out when we have such an unusual dynamic.’_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Tony still isn’t sure how he didn’t say that Steve was their Alpha, even with Thor around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Post IM3, I’m saying screw canon on this one. IM3 is stupid. Why would Tony get rid of the arc reactor? It’s a part of him, as in bolted to his entire chest. It would take major surgery to remove, and the recovery for it is somewhere between six months and two years. He wouldn’t be able to not be Iron Man for that long. And he blew the suits up. I am not accepting that. It was a good movie, but I disagree with hmm, 20% of the plot. Like the part where they set it up perfectly for Pepper to dump Tony and to get with Happy BUT THEY DIDN’T (because that’s totally cannon and I do ship Pepperony, but I ship Pepper/Happy so much more.))  
> So, they’re camping near a small town that’s about two hours drive from Canberra, called Wee Jasper. It’s pretty neat. I camped there with my family a month or two ago.
> 
> There is more angst, but nothing really upsetting for a few chapters. Okay, nothing really upsetting for about two chapters. Even then, it's mostly UST.  
> And the plot's going to blindside you all.  
> Like.  
> Big time.


	15. MY DEEPEST APOLOGIES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. i am never going to fix the HTML on this  
> 2\. I AM DISCONTINUING THIS IM SO SORRY  
> 3\. this is everything i have written in the rest of this document and i really am never going to finish this fic, if any of you would like to go ahead, but as youve probably noticed ive moved on to different pastures and tbh i can write way better now also this was mostly just self indulgent BS   
> 4\. ??? hope you all enjoy and i have honestly forgotton whats in here but there's notes galore im p sure and half finished chapters and huge jumps in information  
> 5\. end game was supposed to be steve/tony/bucky FYI

Chapter 13;

Steve finds his routine easier to keep at the tower, contrary to what he thought when he first arrived. He gets up, runs places, up and down the emergency escape stairs if he absolutely has to, but usually outside in the cool morning air, eats, showers and brushes his teeth, and then immerses himself in things.  
Like umm…  
Things.  
Like.  
You know, _things_.  
Okay, so he does nothing. But what does he really have to do? He hasn’t been able to put a pencil to paper without feeling sick since the train in Switzerland, he can only exercise for so long before even he has to admit that it’s too much, and things just seem… boring. Nothing can hold his attention for more than a few hours anymore. But the hours still slip away alarmingly fast, and he knows that he has to do _something_ or he doesn’t really know what’s going to happen.  
But choosing what to do isn’t easy when there are literally a million different things to do that he hasn’t tried before, and nothing seems interesting after an hour or two.  
He supposes that moving into the tower probably helped with that front. Just a little.  
“Sir, Master Stark would like to see you.”  
Steve bites his tongue and doesn't tell Jarvis not to call him ‘sir’. Jarvis delights in not doing exactly what people ask.  
“Let him in, then.” Steve pushes himself up so he’s sitting on his bed, and then gets up proper, so it at least looks like he’s been doing more than laying in bed since he showered.  
For a few days after coming back from their break in Australia, which they were actually apparently very lucky to get, so soon after New York; apparently S.H.I.E.L.D. was still fielding enquiries from various media outlets, and Steve was yet to see a magazine that didn’t have at least one of the Avengers on the cover. Okay, so magazines about gardening aside.   
It was still weird to see his own face, admittedly under the cowl, as Fury was not having another Avenger outed. Bruce, Tony and Thor were enough as it was, and all three of them could safely guarantee their privacy whilst out and about through their own means, but Clint and Natasha were as likely to break fingers as they were to ask people to politely go away, and Steve would have no hope. He, as Hill kindly put it, is too damned polite.  
Since returning from Australia, he, for a couple of days, had felt almost normal again, but the feeling hadn’t been permanent, and he had slowly slipped back down.  
“He is presently unable to. He wishes you to join him in the sitting room.”  
Steve rubs his eyes. He feels tired. “Okay.”  
Tony’s sitting on the rug with his back to Steve, preoccupied with something in front of him. The whole room smells foreign, like a stranger has rubbed themselves against everything possible in the room. Steve bristles a little.  
“Steve, is that you?” Tony twists to see behind him, and beams. “Come here. I’ve got something for you. No, down, sit, mutt.”  
“What have you-”  
“Come here! Sit down. Jarvis says you’ve been a little off lately, so I got you something to fix it.”  
Steve slowly approaches Tony, and sits where he indicated.  
“Surprise!” Tony holds up nothing less than a puppy, which he nearly drops when it squirms particularly enthusiastically. Steve automatically reaches out to catch it. Tony lets it go, and Steve’s the one holding the puppy now.  
“What is that?”  
“It’s a dog, obviously.”  
“No, I mean why do you have a puppy?”  
“You’ve been moping.” Tony grins at him. “And it’s been proven that social contact helps with PTSD and bond-loss, and basically, this is the ‘sorry-we’re-a-shitty-pack’ gift.”  
“Post-Traumatic— I don’t have-!”  
“You’re not denying bond loss!” Tony sings.   
Steve hugs the puppy to his chest and frowns. “But I’m not confirming it, either.” Steve pauses and lets the puppy lick his hand.   
“You’re moping. Like, serious, level 8 moping. You don’t get that unless you lose someone. You lost someone. Someone important, and you’re still blaming yourself, aren’t you?”  
“I don’t need to explain myself to you, Tony.” Steve goes to push himself to his feet, but Tony grabs his ankle, and he has to sit back down, else hurt the puppy.  
“It’s Bucky, isn’t it?”  
Steve drops the puppy, and it bolts across the room in search of something or another.  
“Holy shit, I’m right.” Tony skitters back until he’s pressed against the couch. His expression is indecipherable. “That was… how did you get away with it?” he sounds slightly awed. “Wasn't he a Beta?”  
“He _was_ , until he was caught by Schmidt, and used as a lab rat. Then… I’m not sure what he was. We were camping. In the middle of nowhere. No one was there to care about us, as long as we took down the Schmidt.”  
“But it didn’t start after you got him back, did it?” Well, if Steve ever needed any proof that Tony wasn’t totally oblivious, there it was. “It went on before, right?”  
“Careful Tony, your genius is shining through.”  
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just spill.”  
“Did I ever tell you what it was like before the war?”  
Tony just scowls. It’s amusing to know that he just expected the necessities, not a history lesson.  
“Well, for starters, there wasn’t all this Omega liberation. Not even a bit. There were no tests for secondary gender; you had to wait. It was violent and dangerous, especially if you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.  
“When I was a kid, my dad was physically abusive and a drunk and, hey, we can relate. Except he thought I was an Omega because I was so small. At least you had your bloods protecting you. Well, he died, then mom died, and I went to live with my nan. Bucky was there through all of it. I was two years older than him, and he phased when he was thirteen. He freaked right out, and he was only a Beta. He didn’t have to worry about heat and pheromones and whatever. I waited and waited, and watched everyone around me phase, and I honestly thought I’d never mature. Until I did. You know my medical history. My asthma. When I went to college, it was the worst. If there was an Omega anywhere near heat, which was pretty much always, I couldn’t be there, but it wasn't bad enough that I couldn’t breathe. No, my body had to go into overdrive like any other Alpha’s.” Steve’s not even sure why he’s telling Tony. Perhaps he’ll understand somehow. “Bucky always just helped me. We didn’t mate, not until… after, but it was nice all the same.” Steve pauses and smirks. “And _God_ the mouth on that kid.”  
Tony’s eyes widen and his jaw drops. “Did you just…”  
“You sound so surprised.” The puppy finally returns, and Steve picks it up again and deposits it between his legs. It tries to scrabble over his thigh, but can’t quite seem to reach. “I can go on, especially if you keep making that face.”  
Tony stops making that face, but he does flop down and puts his head on Steve’s thigh and gestures for Steve to continue. “Never had I dreamed that you’d have a dirty mouth.”  
Steve hesitates a moment too long, thinking about what he should say—as it is, he’s surprised he came out with the bit before—and Tony pinches him.  
“Sorry! I didn’t actually mean to say that before!”  
“But you offered to go on.”  
“Do you really want to hear about my sexual exploits with another Omega that much?”  
“Are you suggesting that I’m an Omega?”  
Steve backtracks and realises what he had said. “No! Unless you are, which would be completely ok. I never told you about Peggy? She was the best. She-”  
“Okay old man. You can stop reminiscing.”   
They fall silent.  
“Do you ever regret anything?”  
“I regret coming out here when Jarvis asked me to.” He’s lying, Tony turns his face away; he knows Steve’s lying, which is good.  
“Steve I’m trying to be serious.”  
“I know. I just.” This just turned towards things that Steve doesn’t want to think about, let alone talk about.   
“My dad, he always used to say; don’t regret anything, Anthony, until it’s too late.” Tony props himself up so he can shift closer.  
Steve rolls his eyes and scratches the puppy. “He told me the same. But when it’s too late, you regret everything.”  
“Do you regret Project Rebirth?” Tony sounds shocked, and rightly so.  
“No, no. Not at all. But nearly everything else, yes. I got Bucky pregnant, you know. God that was stupid.”  
“You’ve got a kid? Not even I managed that, and I had a lot of sex when I was younger.”  
“He died before-” Steve doesn't think he can talk anymore. He shouldn’t have spoken about this. Just because for a fleeting moment he thought he’d be okay, doesn’t mean that he was. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could see the forties with the same level of detachment as everyone else. Even for Thor, it was a long time ago, and he can recall things between then and now, but for Steve it was literally last year, and he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of compartmentalising his memory.  
Tony, in a very uncharacteristic gesture, wordlessly puts his arms around Steve’s waist and rubs his head against his stomach.  
“You know what would be the worst?” Tony’s voice is muffled, probably because his face is buried somewhere between Steve’s navel and the puppy. “If he was still alive and holy shit Natasha don’t do that.”  
“Stark, I didn’t realise that you swung that way.”   
Tony scrambles away from Steve, and he misses the heat and weight already. “I don’t! I’m providing much needed emotional support for Steve!”  
“I know, I didn’t know you did stuff like that. I’ve always known you tend to go for attractive guys you can browbeat into submission.” She shrugs. “Anyway, Clint wants to watch a movie, and apparently the sound in here’s the best and he’s too scared to come and kick you two out.”  
“Finally, someone on this team who respects their superiors.”  
“I respect Fury.” Steve said plainly.  
“But he’s not your superior.”  
“Just bring Clint in here and I’ll find somewhere for this little guy to sleep.” Steve stands and scoops the puppy up with one hand. “Call Thor and Bruce and we’ll make a night of it!” he adds as he walks down the corridor.Chapter 14; 

The Avengers grow, picking up lab accidents and mutants, and no one dies.  
It’s a win on all fronts.

Steve noticed that there was something wrong the moment he stepped into the lobby of Stark Tower. It just smelt wrong, off, but the Omega-lady behind the counter didn’t seem to notice. He walked over to her and held up his ID card, and she waved him on.   
The closer he got to the elevator, the stronger the scent was, thick and sweet, not over bearing, but it went straight to his groin, and soon the desire to find the source of this smell got so strong to the point where he knew that he would have a tough time controlling his instincts if he went into that little metal box, and instead turned sharply left, and opted to take the stairs.  
All eighty-eight floors.  
S.H.I.E.L.D. had better pay him a little overtime for this. He was only supposed to be picking up Clint’s new bow and the unique polymer sample that Tony had developed for uniforms.  
For a fleeting second when he pushed open the fire escape door on the eighty-eighth floor, he thought that he was going to bear witness to the return of his asthma. It was a nice reminder that he was just human, but it was a horrible reminder that he was just an Alpha, too.  
He gripped the doorframe tightly, and sucked air in through his teeth, and thought about more sobering things, like dead people he knew.  
He made his way further into the floor, picking his way through the myriad of machinery. “Tony?” He stopped by the glass airlock door that lead to the main section of the lab. No one could get in there except for Tony, Pepper and Bruce. And select others when Jarvis was feeling that Tony really needed someone (Steve) to tell him to get to bed.  
He banged his fist on the glass when Tony didn’t answer.  
Sometimes the genius got so lost in his work that something like that was the only way to get his attention. “Tony!”  
“Hey Cap.” Tony’s voice came over the intercom. Odd. Usually he just opened the door and let Steve in.  
“Hey, Tony. Is everything alright?”  
“Just fine. I’ll get Butterfingers to bring you the equipment.” Tony sounded slightly strained.  
“Wouldn’t it be easier for me to get it myself?”  
There was a long pause, cut by Tony making those odd little sounds that he does when he’s arguing with himself over something important, like a motherboard or soldering the wiring for his armour. “Oh, fine. Just don’t touch _anything_. I’m running calibrations.” The door hissed as it slid open, and Steve leant on the frame when the pheromones assaulted his nose.  
“Wow.”  
He followed Tony’s advice and weaved through the lab, taking great care to skirt around everything in the room. He found Tony in the suit, reading a holographic display that was changing so quickly that Steve could hardly read what was displayed on it.  
“Why are you in the suit?”  
“Running calibrations.” He reached out and slid some of the holograms around, pulling bars and twisting imaginary dials.  
“Are you going to tell me what for, or is the smell supposed to be a hint?”  
“Smell?” Tony seemed genuinely puzzled, but with the vocal filter on the helmet, Steve could be mistaken. “Huh. Must be working. I’m calibrating the air filters in this thing. That last mission was nasty. You know, if I have to go into the sewers again, I would like not to gag to death.” Tony turned back to his display. “Stuff’s on the bench over there.”  
Steve found the bench and the equipment, and gathered it all up. It was all a lot lighter than it looked. It was about then that something started to niggle in his gut asides from lust. Something wasn’t quite right. Call it a gut feeling. Either that, or he was getting used enough to the smell to be able to think past it. But he was a little curious now. Tony was acting weird. “Is everything alright with you?” Steve settled against the bench, prepared for the rather drawn out process of prying information from Tony.  
Tony felt his ears flatten a little more under his helmet. He was perfectly fine, apart from the part where he was drunk, and actually sort of really wanted Steve to fuck him into a wall or on one of his benches, his dignity be damned, whilst at the same time he didn’t because it was really nice having Steve treat him as an equal, and he didn’t even want to think about how Steve and his seventy year old sensibilities would treat him if the Alpha found out he was an Omega. That, and the thought of mating with anyone, even the Virtuous Captain Rogers, disgusted (and terrified) him.  
“Tony?”  
“I’m fine, cap. Just busy. Can you go away please?”  
Steve came into his line of vision, and stood there, hands on his hips, the very vision of stubborn. “Take the helmet off and I’ll believe it.”  
“That would defeat the purpose of calibrating my air filters.” He paused. He needed something to make his lie slightly more effective. “What _does_ it smell like?” Well, of course he knew, it was _his_ body that was secreting the smell.  
Steve made a pained face. “Sweet. Umm…” He was making a conscious effort to breathe through his mouth. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath through his nose. And full out moaned. Tony bit his tongue when he gasped involuntarily, and tasted blood.  
Steve’s knees wobbled a little, he slipped, and his knees hit the floor. Tony’s heart leapt into his throat, stammering in its offbeat pattern. Steve surely couldn’t be that affected by his scent that he had become like this, that he would be this… weak? No, Steve isn’t weak, Tony cancelled the thought out. Steve’s got the serum running through his blood, it’s definitely made his senses stronger, and it’s probably bought out more of his animalistic instincts, making him more susceptible to pheromones. He licked his lips, and tried to ignore the wetness that was slowly staining his inner thighs. “Rogers?” He asked, glad for once that the armour’s vocal output had only one tone of voice.  
Steve’s head snapped up to look at him, his pupils blown wide in lust. “Jesus, Tony, it smells so good, better than any other Omega I’ve smelt.” Tony deactivated the audio input in the helmet before he could hear anything else Steve had to say about how good Tony smelt. He didn’t need to head Steve’s constant, deep rumble, and he held himself in place, stock still, ignoring the HUD in the suit, how it was displaying his vitals, all peaking in dangerous levels.  
Steve took a surprisingly small amount of time to compose himself, but didn’t stand. He just reigned himself in, and Tony reactivated the external audio feed to hear what the Alpha was saying.  
“I will leave when I can ascertain that you are at least, appearing healthy. Please remove the helmet.”  
Tony couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to, and he reached up and pulled the helmet off with a series of soft clicks. Surprisingly, Jarvis didn’t even try to lecture him or give him any warnings, and the moment the air seal on the suit was broken, and the smells of the outside world seeped in, Tony probably would’ve jumped Steve were it not for the armour. “Jesus fuck.” Tony gasped. Steve probably couldn’t smell it, but his Alpha scent had filled the room as much as Tony’s heat had, and damnit Tony would be using this as masturbation material for weeks to come. Hah. To come.  
Because he was stupid, he approached Steve to prove his point. He crouched in front of the super soldier, and looked into his eyes. Steve’s ears twitched. “See?” He asked, “Perfectly fine.”  
Tony didn’t see, however, what Steve did next, but it wound up with their mouths mashed together, Steve’s fingers dragging through his hair and rubbing the tattered remains of his ears in all the right places. He vaguely realised that he was lying on his back, and Steve was kneeling between his knees, _oh God_ kissing him.   
_Oh God_ his mind had been reverted to that of a horny teenager.  
The kiss was rather inelegantly executed, but Tony’s body really didn’t care all that much. It still tried to arc up to meet Steve’s lazy thrusts, simple (powerful) rolls of the soldier’s hips, and his legs still fell apart until the suit’s joints reached their capacity.   
Fuck. He was willingly submitting to Steve.  
Steve seemed to realise that, and pushed his tongue forwards, and Tony let him, his jaw falling slack in favour of more of what Steve would offer.  
It wasn’t until Steve accidentally bit his lip in his enthusiasm, sharp teeth easily sinking through Tony’s skin, that Tony snapped to his senses and jerked away. Steve too, pulled away, but remained between Tony’s legs, pupils blown and lips slack and reddened. He had done that to Steve.   
_Steve_ , the epitome of self-restraint and umm… and not having sex. Tony wasn’t thinking at his peak. Steve was still between his legs, and he looked really fuckable and a little like he doesn’t know what to do.  
Colour rose in his cheeks. “Gosh, Tony, I’m so sorry. That was out of line, rude, _totally_ inappropriate.” Tony just lay there and thought about all of the totally inappropriate things he wanted to do with Steve— _to_ Steve, and tongued his lip. He had half a mind to squirm away, protect himself, and the other half telling him to grab Steve by the collar, rut against him, and mess him up even more. So he just sat there, rooted to the spot, and watched as Steve got to his feet, the blush extending down to his hip at least, where his shirt had ridden up against the knee of the Iron Man suit.  
Steve grabbed the bow and the polymer sample, and left abruptly, nearly knocking a beaker stand over on his way past.  
Tony waved a holographic screen over and fiddled with the controls. He bought up the security feed, and found Steve, taking the stairs. He wasn’t being creepy. He was just making sure that the blond didn’t jump one of his poor, unsuspecting employees on his way out of the tower.  
He got to his feet, bringing the screen with him. He stood in the only clear patch in the lab, and the robotic arms pieced the suit apart, releasing him from the titanium-gold alloy. He immediately stripped his undershirt off too, keeping an eye on the screen, and had to lean on the bench when he saw that during his lapse of attention, Steve had sat down in the stairwell, knees slightly spread, head in his hands.  
Tony couldn’t see what was happening very clearly, so he selected a different camera to watch from. The image flickered, and Tony was given a better view. He probably would’ve dropped something if he were holding it.  
Had anyone asked him about the sex drive of Captain America, he would’ve scoffed and said that it didn’t exist. Not that he had been keeping tabs on it.  
Not at all.  
But Steve definitely had his hand wrapped around his cock, and the palm of his other hand pressed in his mouth, biting down hard enough for a trickle of blood to be dribbling down the Not-So-Virtuous Captain’s wrist.  
“Jarvis, activate audio.” It must have been Tony’s birthday or something, because that was the second time in an hour that Jarvis didn’t inform him of how stupid that command was, and instead did as he was told, and Tony could hear the faint groans that were escaping Steve’s makeshift gag.  
Tony sank into a chair and let his legs fall apart slightly. He pushed his hand down his pants, and matched Steve stroke for stroke. The pace that Steve set was too slow for Tony, but he still stuck to it, twisting his hands on the upstroke to swipe his thumb across the head on the way past. He wet his lips quickly, and swallowed thickly.  
His orgasm took him completely by surprise, shortly after Steve’s, and he meekly noticed that his boy had been prepared to come since he pretty much sat down, but he had been so focused on, so in tune with Steve that it hadn’t until Steve had finished.  
Steve had been a lot neater, Tony found. Steve had known exactly when he would finish, and deftly caught it all in his hand, and Tony thought that he couldn’t breathe for a second when Steve licked the white fluid off his palm with a single swipe of his tongue.  
Oh fuck. How was he supposed to even look at Steve again?

Steve tried to appear normal and calm when he made it down to the lobby. He really did, but he was aware of the flush around his cheeks and rising up the back of his neck, and tried to pretend that they didn’t exist. His hand had almost healed already, just four little circular scabs now, and they itched like mad, but he refrained, and clutched Clint’s bow really tightly instead. He slid the bow and the fabric into the saddlebags of his bike, and swung his leg over the seat. He jammed his helmet on for a change, all too aware of what he had just done.  
He had just kissed another Alpha, and then jerked off to the memory of Tony’s rough stubble against his jaw.  
He was never going to be able to look Tony in the eye again.  
Unfortunately, he had to. Or he at least would have to look Iron Man in the eye again. He could probably do that.  
He made a quick stop at the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. office, and handed over the equipment from Tony, and as he was leaving, something struck Steve as odd.  
Tony had said that he had been running calibrations on the air filters in the suit, and he was using _Omega pheromones_ as the scent? It was extremely difficult and expensive to acquire pheromones in such a large quantity that he would even be able to scent it from the lobby. In fact it would probably take about half a gallon of pure pheromones just spilt over every available surface in Tony’s lab…  
Or an Omega in heat.  
And Steve hadn’t seen any bottles labelled ‘pheromones’ just lying around. Which mean that there had been an Omega in heat in Tony’s lab recently.  
And he was certain that he had heard _somewhere_ , perhaps from Tony himself, that Tony didn’t _do_ Omegas in heat. Which really, left one option. And Steve wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, so he discarded the notion entirely.  
Tony was an Omega.

 

“Hey, yeah, can I skip the whole assembling thing today?”   
Steve resisted the urge to demand that Tony just show up. “Tony,” Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, and started again. “Tony, can you just suit up please? It’s _team_ training for a reason.”  
Tony made an angry sound. “Sorry, let me rephrase that for you. I’m not coming today.”  
Steve gave up being polite. “Tony, I expect you there in fifteen minutes.” Steve left no room for negotiation in his voice, and Tony whined on the other end of the line. He just hung up and tried not to think about how submissive that sound had been. It just solidified the concept that Tony was an Omega even more.  
But the question was, should he confront Tony about it? Something like this could very easily ruin the team dynamic, and it was just starting to go so well. Especially if it ever came to a head. Especially if he asked, and he was wrong.  
All of the Avengers now had their own quarters in Stark Mansion, (aptly redubbed Avenger’s Mansion, because Tony had some thing with the mansion that no one really wanted to delve into much, also the tower was deemed too much of a target and Steve wholeheartedly agrees), but most of them preferred to keep to themselves. Bruce was on what Tony called a ‘pilgrimage’, Steve just said he was on a working vacation. Natasha and Clint were still S.H.I.E.L.D. assets, so they spent most of their time abroad, and the rest of the time sleeping on each other wherever they happened to crash. They were a part of their own pack, which extended to include other Avengers when necessary.  
Thor alternated between Asgard and Jane, and then the occasional, (planned) team training sessions on a fortnightly basis.  
As for Steve. Well. Where to begin?  
Tony hadn’t actually offered Steve a room personally like he had the other Avengers. He just received the blanket offer from Jarvis shortly after Loki had been returned to Asgard for his punishment. So Steve occasionally spent the night in the mansion, but more often than not, he was in his apartment in Brooklyn, waiting for something to go wrong.  
Just… waiting.  
Tony got to their training site shortly after everyone else did, and demanded that they just ‘get a wriggle on’ because he had ‘a nice dame—your words, Rogers—waiting for me back at the mansion.’  
Steve had grit out a sharp ‘yes’, and barked out a few orders to them. He still struggled to think of the Avengers as his pack. They were never around at the same time, and they were never as close to each other, they lacked the _trust_ that his Howling Commandos had fought long and hard for.

~~[[---]]~~

Once the final effects of his heat wore off, Tony had a shower. And another drink. He wished, not for the first time, that the palladium poisoning hadn’t affected his body _quite so much_ , thank you. Then, he would be able to take suppressants. It was nice being permanently sterile, but did he still have to endure heats? He would have to do something about it. He had managed it before.

 

Steve listened to Agent Hill intently. He knew that Tony would definitely tease him later, he always did, but he didn’t care that much. Debrief was important, otherwise they wouldn’t have to sit through it.  
He tapped the end of his pencil against his wrist gently, writing the occasional note when he needed to. Around him, the others weren’t behaving quite so well.  
Natasha was listening, of course, she was the only other one who consistently did so, but Clint’s head was in her lap, cheek rubbing against her groin, Clint’s feet were in Bruce’s lap. Bruce was vaguely listening to Hill, but he was rubbing his thumb in little circular motions over Clint’s anklebone. Clint was humming happily, and there was a low rumble in Bruce’s chest, rather possessive, and Steve knew that it was the remnants of the Hulk’s Alpha control; he could smell it. Bruce was likely to be indisposed for the next eighteen hours or so.  
Thor was looking rather dazed, like he’s thinking about something else, and he likely was. Steve couldn’t get a grip on what Thor was thinking half the time due to said Asgardian’s lack of ears and tail.  
Janet was flicking her stings around her fingers, short sharp flashes of golden light that Steve didn’t want to be on the receiving end of.   
Tony was tapping at his phone avidly, and Steve couldn’t make heads or tails of the lines of text running across the screen at lightning quick speeds.  
He looked back at Hill and refocused himself by closing his eyes and taking a deep breath through his nose.  
It didn’t quite work like it usually did.  
Steve’s stomach twisted when he scented something other than musty carpet and muddy Avengers in the air.  
No, this was the unmistakably sweet scent of an Omega going into heat.  
Steve felt himself grow hard in response, body prepared to assist the Omega, to spread his genes, and he wondered briefly if anyone would notice if he lifted his shield into his lap, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.  
He kept flicking his eyes around the room, and it doesn’t take Tony long to glance up, eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. So he can smell it too. Their eyes lock, and Steve can’t look away. Something gnaws at his stomach, and his shoulders stiffen, and ears flatten against his skull. His lips draw back a touch in a silent snarl. It’s _his pack_ , and he won’t back down to Tony for an Omega.  
Tony shrunk in his seat, slipping down, and his ears drooped. He then shook himself abruptly, just a tiny shiver, and he was sitting up ramrod straight again, but he looked terrified.  
Like he was scared that Steve was going to—  
Steve stood abruptly and walked out, completely ignoring the stares from the others.  
Shit shit shit shit _shit_.  
Tony was terrified because he _was_ the Omega. Tony was going into heat and only Steve could tell because of the stupid serum and his stupid enhanced senses.  
He ducked into an empty office and put his shield on the desk. The smell had seemed to chase him, or it had clung to his uniform. He breathed in deeply and allowed himself to growl in the back of his throat. He wanted, so desperately, to go back and drag Tony back out with him before another Alpha, Thor or goodness is Natasha an Alpha? That’s probably one of those things that no one knew. But he desperately wanted to take Tony somewhere private where they could mate and—  
Steve shook his head. That was a stupid fantasy, and had no place on their team. And the _look_ Tony had given him, the fright and panic. What had happened to him to make him so scared of Alphas?, to the point where he pretends to be one to avoid close contact with another.   
Practically, he knew that if he and Tony mated, and on the ridiculously off chance bonded, then Steve would never be able to send Tony back into the field again, and tactically, he _needed_ Iron Man. It had been hard enough allowing Bucky into the field after Steve got him back and they weren’t even bonded, and Steve knew that he wouldn’t be able to handle losing another mate because of one of his stupid mistakes.  
And Tony was a jerk.  
Mostly.  
Sort of.  
An argument could be made for misunderstood.  
Six, no, seven times out of ten.  
Steve left the room and wound his way through the helicarrier to the deck, and walked around on the higher half of the deck until the rest of the team emerged into the fading sunlight also.  
Tony launched almost immediately, and sped back towards the mansion presumably, Thor followed suit with Natasha clinging to his shoulders tightly, and Janet followed them, buzzing around Steve’s head long enough to shrug at him.  
Bruce was giving Clint a piggy-back ride, and it was them that Steve followed to a helicopter, and Clint flew them back to the mansion.  
“What happened back there?” Clint asked. Steve was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, and Bruce in the hold of the Quinjet.  
He couldn’t really think of a suitable lie on the spot, so he’d have to settle for an unsuitable one. “I thought I heard something outside, but I was wrong.”  
Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose and looks away, “Alright, let’s go.”  
Clint doesn’t argue at all.

 

 

ALT! Chapter 15 ish whatever it’s not canon anymore but let’s face it this was fun to write even if Steve isn’t too clever

Being alert is a thing that he will never really grow out of. He notices things, and its saved his life before, several times. So when he first notices the black sedan, he doesn't stop jogging, he's only gotten a few miles in, just to Central Park so far, but he does notice that its following him.   
It could just be chance, but the chances of that are... Low, to say in the least. It could be a government car; he had been approached by so many war generals that even he has trouble remembering all their names, or its SHIELD, which is ok, but it means the world is ending, or alternately, it someone who has found out who he is (not ridiculously difficult, seeing as he kept his own name, and all the basic information from Project Rebirth became public after the war), and intend to do him harm. He comes to a stop under a tree, to shield his eyes from the harsh sunlight, no point trying to avoid the inevitable outcome, to wait for the car.   
It pulls up beside him, and the rear door swings open. He catches a glimpse of a slender hand, slipping away from the door handle, into the dark interior of the car. He approaches, and sniffs as inconspicuously as he can, and can't detect any hint of malice, and so gets in the car.  
Natasha is sitting in the back seat, typing rapidly with one hand on a phone, whilst the other is resting in her lap. She nods, to him, he thinks.  
"Natasha." He acknowledges. She has been absent for the last few weeks, on official SHIELD business. She's relaxed in her seat, all sweeping lines and soft curves that makes the artist in him weep, nonchalant, inattentive, and so, so dangerous. She, and by extension, the car, smell faintly sweet, as if she's been near an Omega recently. The scent was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't pin it down.  
She launches straight into the deep end, and for that, Steve's grateful. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has been tracking a threat to the United Nations, and a tactical decision has been made for you to bring him in."  
"Fury doesn't want me to kill him?"  
"Actually, he does. But you're not going to do that."  
"Do you think that's something I'd do, or is it what you want?" Steve wouldn't put it past Natasha to use him for her own gains.  
"I think it's what you want." She doesn't give him time to think about it, and hands him a Stark Pad. "This is the Winter Soldier. Russian Special Forces. He's neutralised every agent we've sent after him so far."  
"So I'm going."  
"There's a new suit for you. Stark designed it."  
That's a reasonable motive, right?  
Nah, he just needs to get out more.

 

Natasha comes with him, to an ocean liner full of shipping containers. They're in a S.H.I.E.L.D. issue jet some fifty meters above the water.  
"  
Steve just smiles, and jumps from the hangar. It's a four second drop into icy water, twenty second swim, ten second climb, and then he's warm again as he swings his shield into the face of an unsuspecting guard.  
Natasha plays catch up, and when they're off the deck and inside the hatch, she speaks, whilst picking the lock to the next door. "What about that pretty blonde Omega at S.H.I.E.L.D.?"  
"Natasha, stop trying to set me up with people! It's bad enough that Tony gave me a dog."  
"Stark gave you a dog?"  
"Labrador cross puppy. Apparently it doesn't drop fur, so that's a plus."  
"Adorable." Natasha coos mockingly. "You should get with Stark then."  
"No?" That came out more as a question than Steve wanted.   
There's no time to talk then, because Natasha's picked the lock and they're slipping into the hold of the ship.  
It's, in short, a disaster.   
The Winter Soldier isn't there, Steve earns a bruise in the ribs when one slightly more clever soldier kicks the door shut as he's going through it.  
Natasha swears herself blue in the face and they steal a small motorboat to escape. Steve fiddles with his radio, and only hopes a little bit that they'll be picked up.   
_~~~~~~~_  
Natasha smirks. "We can do that, right?"  
They’re reviewing video footage of The Winter Soldier, an explosion had sent a burning car at him, and he just sidestepped it. Like it was a toy.  
“Throw a car at him, or dodge it?”  
“You could throw the car, I’ll set it on fire.”  
“This isn’t even a viable option, look at the tape! It didn’t even faze him.”  
“Can we just try to throw a vehicle at him?”  
“You’re not going to shut up about this, are you?”

 

2014  
After the serum, and getting thrown seven decades into the future and surviving, Steve wasn’t easily surprised. Except maybe if Tony came up and grabbed his crotch without warning. That would be surprising, because Tony was doing a damn good impression of hating him at the time. And had done since they had first laid eyes on each other.  
If the serum hadn’t enhanced his sense of smell even more than it already was, he would never have guessed that Tony was an Omega. As it was, he didn’t realise until he dropped by Stark Tower to pick up some tech that Tony had been working on for S.H.I.E.L.D., and had smelt the heat from the foyer.  
He wasn’t quite sure how he managed to keep a straight face, and took the stairs, not sure if he could trust himself in an elevator that reeked of Tony, and got the tech and got out unscathed, albeit a little aroused. He had wished, not for the first time, that he still had Bucky, but settled for a cold shower once he got back to his apartment in Brooklyn.  
Right now, he was striding down one of the corridors of the Helicarrier, following Maria Hill and Director Fury somewhere. He hadn’t been told much, only that he was required urgently. So urgently, in fact, that Clint had shown up a few minutes later in a nondescript S.H.I.E.L.D. jeep to get him to the Helicarrier.   
“In here please, Captain Rogers.”  
Steve withdrew his hands from his jacket pockets and allowed Maria to usher him into the room. It was a room he was familiar with, it was the observer’s room for interrogations. He had been inside both this room and the room it was separated from by a one-way window when they tried to interrogate Loki, a few months prior. Tried being the operative word here. Then Dr Doom, and he had even been interrogated at one point. Well, he had a calm discussion with Agent Hill, more of a psychology session to make sure that he was not inhabited by Loki or something. Routine business.  
But now, there was a man tied, chained actually, to the solid chair in the room, chin tucked to his chest. His left arm gleamed under the fluorescent lighting. Steve recognised him. Steve had actually arrested, detained might be the right words here. He had detained the man a few days ago. His back was still a little stiff in the mornings from the fight. That metal arm sure packed a punch.  
“Well?” Steve glanced away from the dark haired man in the interrogation room, and at Fury. “Who is he?”  
“We were hoping you could tell us.” Fury threw something at him, and he caught it deftly. It was a scratched set of dog tags. He checked them.  
 _His_ dog tags. From a long, long time ago.  
Steve frowned. “Where did you get these?”  
Fury just pointed at the man in the room.  
“Can I go in there?” Steve’s stomach churned nervously, and Fury inclined his head.  
Steve briskly left the room, and moments later, he was under the fluorescent lighting too, the door being bolted loudly behind him. His ears twitched in response to the noise, and the brunet didn’t move at all, but a faint sheen of sweat covered his bare chest.  
“Hello?” Steve crouched in front of the man, feeling hypersensitive. He was holding the dog tags so tightly they were digging painfully into his palm, the lights seemed too bright and glary, and the room was permeated with a thick sweet Omega odour that he associated with a memory that occurred decades ago. “My name is Steven Rogers.”  
The man’s eyes snapped open, and he started struggling against the chains, straining to get to Steve. Steve stood and leapt back, just in case.  
“Please, I just want to talk.”  
The man fell still and raised his head, and Steve’s breath caught in his throat. “Then _talk._ ” He snarled.  
Steve held the chain aloft, and let the dog tags fall from his hand. They swung from side to side. “Where did you get these?”  
“I’ve always had them.” The man’s eyes followed the tags as if hypnotised. “Can I have them back?”  
Steve slowly walked a little closer. “Why?” He scooped them into his pocket, and the Omega snarled and tossed his head back, clearing his face of his long hair. The face looked achingly familiar, but it was impossible.  
“They’re _mine_.”   
“No, they’re not.” Steve caught the man’s gaze, and found it to be painfully recognisable. “What’s your name?”  
“The Winter Soldier.”  
Steve shook his head. “No, that’s your code name, just like I’m Captain America. What’s your _real_ name?”  
The Omega’s ears flattened into his hair, judging by the movement and Steve could hear chains rattling quietly, and considering the Winter Soldier wasn’t moving, it must’ve been his tail swishing from side to side. He shook his head.  
Steve walked around behind him, invading the Omega’s space, and threaded his hands through the thick hair. He squatted down so his mouth was level with the Soldier’s ear. “ _What is your name?_ ” He insisted, lowering his voice to the tone he had heard an Alpha use on an Omega once during his training. His voice did something to the brunet, and he shuddered, leaning his head back, baring his throat.  
 _Submitting._  
“Barnes.” He whispered, for Steve’s ears only.  
The bottom of Steve’s stomach dropped out, and he shot to the door, banging on it with his fist. The moment it was open, he sprinted down the hall to the nearest bathroom and leant over the sink when his stomach emptied itself.  
God no, _no_ , not Bucky. Bucky couldn’t be dragged back into this now. He was just getting used to the idea of waking without Bucky’s warm arm thrown casually over his back, just getting used to the idea of working with the Avengers, of glancing at Tony and feeling butterflies fill his stomach without reason, of trusting his back to a pair of assassins who probably didn’t even remember their given names, giggling with Janet when Hank had lost his latest experiment through shrinkage, and here he was, being thrown neck deep in painful memories, forced to relieve every detail, screaming himself hoarse after Bucky fell from the train. Steve had thought him _dead_ , just like he had thought Peggy dead until he was given the file that proved that she was inactive, old (96), married, with grandchildren, great grandchildren. It would have been easier for him if she had’ve just died, instead of finding out that she had moved on, but in truth, he had moved on too.  
He flinched when someone laid a hand on his shoulder, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he turned, he saw Natasha standing there, silent and appraising, as she was, but deathly pale.  
“Is everything okay?” He asked her. It would take a one-on-one encounter with the Hulk to make Natasha like this, and Bruce was in Puerto Rico right now, back to his medicine or working with gamma victims there, so why was Natasha disturbed?  
She nodded, but it was clear she was lying. Her short tail flicked from side to side impatiently. “What about you?” she rubbed his shoulder and her hand dropped.  
“Reliving old memories.” Steve admitted. “I should go back.” Fury would not be happy with him. Natasha offered to come with him, and Steve accepted. He didn’t go into the room with Bucky, he went into the observer’s room, and handed the dog tags back to Fury. “Sorry.” Fury just waved, dismissing Steve’s unusual behaviour, and Natasha huddled into his side, both of them looking at Bucky. He stroked her head, rubbing his thumb over the rough edges of her clipped ears, and she abruptly jerked away from him.  
“I need to go in there.” She declared.   
“Do you want me to come?” Steve offered. She turned away, but didn’t say no. Steve followed her back into the room that was playing host to Bucky.   
She left him the moment the door was locked, and knelt in front of Bucky, reaching up to push her hands through his hair, lingering at his ears. “James?” She asked, pulling his head up. Steve flinched. How did Natasha know Bucky? When had they met, and what did they have between them? Steve forced his possessiveness over his old friend down, and crossed his arms. “Hey, are you allowed to talk to me?”  
Bucky shook his head.  
“Are you allowed to talk to Steve?”  
Another shake of the head, and Natasha switched to Russian, said a phrase, and Bucky stiffened, before falling completely lax in his restraints. The brunet seemed like a different person now, more like Steve knew him before putting himself in the ice.  
“James?”  
Bucky’s eyes snapped to Natasha, and he smiled faintly. “Tash,” He murmured fondly. “Tash you’re okay.” His hands strained behind his back.  
Steve shifted a little. It felt like he was intruding now. Bucky’s eyes turned to him, and he spoke in disbelief.  
“Oh. You… you’re Captain America.”  
“Yeah.” Steve didn’t move. His throat closed over, and he wasn’t able to reply past that. Did Bucky not remember him? After everything they had gone through, every time Bucky had helped him, gotten him out of a fight, _saved his life_ , all of that just… gone.  
Natasha seemed to notice that the way Bucky spoke, or what he said, distressed Steve. A lot. “James, you know Steve?”  
“Hi there.” Bucky flashed him a grin, and nodded his head in replacement of a wave.  
Steve tried to say something, but the intercom crackled to life. “Romanova, Rogers, report.” The electric current running through the glass flicked off and Fury tapped on the glass to attain their attention.  
Natasha grabbed Steve’s arm and pulled him out of the room.  
She didn’t go straight to Fury, instead, she dug her fingers into Steve’s bicep and snarled at him. “What does James mean to you?”  
“You’ve read my file.” Steve replied automatically. He wasn’t going to just reveal the depth of his relationship with Bucky. “He was my mate. I thought he died saving my life. Thanks for telling me he was alive.” Steve wrenched himself free, but before he could return to Fury, the man himself opened the door and stepped into the corridor.  
“Agent Romanova, I’m pulling you from active duty,” was the first thing he said, “Rogers, you’re to bring Stark here tomorrow at 0800, and when Barton brings Banner back, Stark and Banner can have a field day with the lie detector.”  
“Sir, I’m not even going to bullshit my way around this one. Why the _fuck_ are you taking me off duty?” Steve pretended that that didn’t nearly make him laugh.  
“You said he was dead!” Fury’s sudden anger shocked Steve.  
“They _told_ me he was dead!” Natasha screamed right back at him, flinging an arm in the direction of the interrogation room. She clenched her fists, and for a moment, Steve thought that she was going to attack Fury, but she backed off, took a deep breath. That was the most emotional Steve had ever seen her. “Last time I heard, S.H.I.E.L.D. had a hand in the Red Room. Why didn’t you know already?”  
Fury didn’t answer that. “Romanova, return to your quarters now. Rogers, dismissed. Go get Stark.”  
Steve saluted briefly, and traced his steps all the way back to the deck of the Helicarrier. 

 

Steve did as ordered, and bought Tony back to the Helicarrier the next morning. He had to threaten to pick Tony up and carry him there if he had to. Luckily, Tony agreed to being dragged out of the workshop at an ‘obscene hour’, as if Steve had disturbed him at three in the morning.   
Tony didn’t bother trying to pretend that they could get along for the half hour helicopter ride to the Helicarrier, ears flat against his skull, pacing from side to side in what space there was in the back of the vehicle. Steve just sat in one of the seats, loosely buckled in, and didn’t say how unsafe it was for Tony to be standing, because Clint was piloting and Tony would scoff and throw it all in his face; _‘what are you, my Alpha?’_ , how Steve wasn’t _anyone’s_ Alpha, and that would hurt a lot, because they were just going to see Bucky now and if Steve had’ve done things differently, they he would have someone to call his, someone to protect.  
Fury was waiting for them on the deck, Bruce just behind him, cleaning his glasses on the hem of his shirt. He did that a lot when he was nervous.  
Tony sauntered off the helicopter as if he owned the place, and he had designed it, so close enough, and approached Bruce, asking him how his holiday had been. Clint and Steve followed, and Fury took them down to the interrogation rooms.  
“So Captain Capsicle didn’t tell me why I was here.” Tony jogged ahead and tried to loop his arm over the taller Fury’s shoulder. Fury shrugged him off and gave him a stern look. Tony didn’t back away, but he didn’t try anything else.  
“We have a person in custody, and we need Banner and yourself to interrogate him.”  
Tony rubbed his hands together gleefully. He did rather enjoy playing all intimidating-Alpha when he got to use the lie detector but… “Doesn’t Natasha usually do that kind of thing?” Tony didn’t notice Steve, Clint and Fury stiffen slightly.   
“Something urgent came up, and she is otherwise occupied.” Fury said icily, his tone effectively killing any urge in Tony to ask further questions. They stopped outside the interrogation room where a young Beta agent was standing with a trolley covered by a white sheet. “All yours. Captain Rogers will provide you with the control questions.” Fury went into the observation room with Clint.  
Steve opened the door and ushered the Beta and Bruce inside with the equipment, but grabbed Tony’s elbow before he could follow. Tony glared at him, but Steve stood tall and glared right back, and let the door swing shut.  
“What?” Tony stepped into Steve’s personal space, a trick that usually worked on people who thought he was an Alpha, but he probably didn’t know that Steve knew he was an Omega, so it backfired when Steve growled at him, low in his throat, and Tony backed away, a little fearful, and pride slightly damaged.  
“That man in there was very important to me. Do _not_ hurt him in any way.”  
“Yes mum.” Tony rolled his eyes and it was clear that Tony didn’t give two hoots, but he had been warned now, meaning that Steve wasn’t liable for any injury that came to Tony as a direct result of him interrogating Bucky.  
The moment he stepped in the room behind Tony, he was aware that Bucky was staring at him. He squared his jaw and paced over to where Bruce was fiddling with a few dials. Tony was standing behind in a corner, his eyes fixed on the Winter Soldier’s form, possibly trying to figure out what made him so important to Steve.  
Steve made the mistake of looking at Bucky, from the sad, plaintive look on his face, to the metal arm, his left arm. Something in Steve’s chest throbbed painfully. He had always left his marks on Bucky’s left arm, _always_ , and by the time Bucky had plummeted to his ‘death’ from the train, the mark had been all but permanent.  
When Bruce tried to attach the nodes to Bucky’s skin, the Soldier struggled and strained away from the physicist. Bruce gave up and looked at Steve, who shrugged and stepped closer.  
Banner handed him the terminals, and Steve knelt in front of Bucky, unsure where they were supposed to go. Bruce told him where, and whenever Bucky struggled Steve didn’t hesitate to use his Alpha’s presence to force him to stop, even if it made Steve die a little on the inside every time he had to do it.  
When all the nodes were attached, Steve reached out and rubbed Bucky’s ear between his fingers, and realised, aghast, that they were clipped, like Natasha’s. “Good boy.” He murmured. Bucky almost purred.  
“Ready?” Tony bounced into Steve’s view, and placed himself between Bucky and the blond. “What are we asking him?”  
“Fury’s questions are here.” Banner waved a sheet of paper. “But we need to calibrate the machine. Steve?”  
There was a chair in the corner of the room, and Steve pulled it over, straddling it so his forearms were leaning on the high back. Tony stood just behind him.  
“James?” Steve wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do. Bucky’s head snapped towards him. “Can you tell me your full name please?”  
Bucky fidgeted, hesitated, and then answered. “James Buchanan Barnes.”   
In his peripheral vision, Steve could see Bruce adjusting his glasses and nodding. He continued. “Do you know my name?”  
Bucky frowned, and the chains holding him rattled a little. “You’re Steve Rogers, aren’t you?”   
Steve nodded. He wasn’t sure what to ask Bucky now, how much did he remember? He clearly didn’t remember Steve at all. Maybe it was worth a try. Maybe he didn’t remember anything from after he joined the army. “Can you tell me why the teacher beat you when you were in junior year?”  
Bucky’s brow really did scrunch up then, and he closed his eyes, tucked his chin to his chest. “Did… I… I think I punched an Alpha in the face.”  
“Steve?” Bruce looked at the blond when Steve didn’t confirm or deny it.  
“Yes, he’s right. Mr Mayfield caned him for it.”  
Tony laughed and stepped around Steve, and went to ruffle Bucky’s hair. “Tough little Omega.” When Tony was close enough, Bucky lunged and tried to bite the genius’ hand, and Tony jerked it away.  
“Stay the fuck away from me.” Bucky growled at Tony. “Umm…” Steve should probably mention one thing… “Buc—James wasn’t an Omega when he punched the Alpha in the face. He was a Beta.” Tony whirled and frowned at Steve.   
“Not possible.” Tony declared immediately.  
Steve shrugged. “I hadn’t phased yet and the guy was about to break my ribs.” Steve neglected to mention that Bucky was an Omega when he fell from the train.   
He neglected to mention how Bucky was probably pregnant when he fell off the train.  
“I want blood samples.”  
“Tony, now is not the time.” Banner threw something at Tony and it hit him in the side of the head. “We need a lie, and then it’s calibrated. We can start with the proper questions after that.”  
“Alright…” Steve frowned, tried to think of something that he could force Bucky to lie about.   
Bucky looked over at Bruce, appearing somewhat amused and calm, despite the fact that he had been tied to a chair for at least twenty-four hours. “I have never killed anyone in my life.” He said plainly.  
“Umm…” Bruce peered closely at the screen. “Okay…” he made a garbled groaning sound. “Steve does he smell any different?”  
“No.” He smelt just as he had the last time Steve had woken next to Bucky, his arm thrown over the brunet’s back instead of the other way around, but a little more metallic.  
Bruce studied his results a little more. “Okay, got it. Slight depression in heart rate and blood pressure. All systems are go.”  
Tony nudged Steve out of his chair after getting Fury’s questions, and sat as Steve had. He rested his chin on the back of the chair instead, and rested his wrists on his knees, the chair’s back supporting his entire weight. He smoothed out the sheet of questions, and started.  
Some questions, not even Steve could force Bucky to answer, even after Bucky’s head had fallen back on his shoulder in submission, Steve’s fingers settled in his hair. Most of those questions were about his handler, or people he knew after he joined the army. He didn’t remember Steve at all, and Steve stonily stared at the way the light played on the metal arm and wished that he had been a split second faster on that train.  
When Tony folded the paper back on itself so he’d be reading from the top of the page again, Bucky whined and pressed his cheek into Steve’s neck. Steve could smell his hair very easily from here, thick and sweet. Very nice. Steve rubbed Bucky’s head and ears. “It’s alright, just a few more questions.” Steve tried to assure him, but it was clear a few questions later that something was really bothering Steve’s old friend. “Hang on Tony.” Steve called a stop when Bucky refused to answer three questions in a row, even ones that he had already answered. What was left of Bucky’s tail shivered against his leg, and Steve scooted around so he could see Bucky’s face. “Are you alright?” Bucky’s whole body shuddered, and he shook his head sharply.  
“Head hurts.”   
“Okay, can you tell me why?”  
“It’s cold.” Bucky shuddered, and drew in a shaky breath. “I need Tash, please.” He did, his head hurt, his body hurt and he felt hot and cold at the same time, and she always made it better, she always had. She would know what to do.   
“I can’t get her, Bucky.”   
When Steve said this to him, something snapped in him and he howled. It hurt, it all hurt, every bit of it, and it was all too bright, even when he closed his eyes. The name Bucky seemed right, but wrong at the same time, he was certain that he had never been called it before, but now, he wasn’t so sure. Someone touched him, fingers pressing into his hair, rubbing behind his ears, and he wanted to lean into the touch, lose himself to the strong Alpha scent, but everything hurt too much. It felt like he had fallen off a cliff, hit the rocks again.  
 _Again_? He hadn’t fallen from a cliff before… had he?  
After some time, he was aware that he was making noise, languages garbled and meshed together in an inelegant mess. “Please, please get Tash I need her, please it hurts.” He was crying, and someone was whimpering along with him—the person touching his hair—and someone else was quietly snarling in the background but he didn’t care. He just wanted Natasha. “I need her. It’s too bright.”  
The nodes on his skin were pulled off, and thumbs smoothed over the skin they covered. Someone gently asked him to be quiet, it was all right now, it was all over, and he did fall silent, but it wasn’t over. It still hurt, it was still too bright and he was still alone, and then the fingers were gone from his hair, and he was even more alone. The room fell silent save for his quiet whimpers.   
Steve stalked out of the room. It physically hurt him to see Bucky in so much pain, screaming for Natasha, so he was going to get her. Tony followed, his posture stiff, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Banner stayed, and quietly packed up the machine and tucked it in a corner for tomorrow. Steve wasn’t going to force Bucky to answer any more questions until he wasn’t screaming in pain.  
Fury didn’t stop him from leaving, didn’t stop him from bringing Natasha back. Tony followed him the whole time quietly and angrily murmuring things to himself the whole time, but Steve hardly noticed him.  
Natasha didn’t let anyone follow her in, and moments after she entered, Bruce and the other agent were kicked out. Steve wanted to keep an eye on Bucky, and went into the observation room, Tony and Bruce right behind him.  
Natasha wasn’t near Bucky at all. She was instead, standing in front of the window, staring directly at Fury. It was slightly unnerving mainly because she couldn’t see through the window because it was a mirror on that side! She gestured, miming turning a light switch off and Fury shook his head, frowning.   
“I’m not turning it off.” He said into the intercom.  
“Then turn the them down at least. Or I’ll break him out.”  
Fury’s gaze didn’t waver, but he waved to a technician, who dimmed the lights in the room. Natasha bowed stiffly at the waist and turned away. The microphones in the room picked up even her whispers.  
“Hey James,” Natasha rubbed her fingers through Bucky’s hair, crooning soft words to him, promising that she would make it all better, she’d fix everything. Steve was very aware of Clint, bristling by his side. Steve knew that Clint and Natasha had some sort of arrangement, perhaps similar to what he had with Bucky in high school, but then he realised that he wasn’t sure what Natasha was. She had never told him her status, and her scent always changed. He had found her smell to range from anything to seriously dominant Alpha, to Omega in full heat (that was one time for a mission), and thus, he couldn’t tell. So Clint could be bristling from anything from possessive rage, to jealousy.  
Steve was still trying to wrap his head around what society now accepted. It still threw him to see Alphas submitting, willingly to others, or to go to a shop, and see an Omega running the store. He thought it was a wonderful advancement, society was getting out of its sexist rut, but it still threw him.  
Natasha had finished calming Bucky down, he was almost asleep, drooling a little, and Natasha was standing in front of the window again, staring at Fury.  
“We can’t keep him in here.”  
“Get out here, Romanova.” Fury told her.  
A minute later, she was discussing how they ‘couldn’t leave James in here,’ explaining exactly why it was a bad idea from the word go, and how difficult she would make things if they didn’t give Bucky some freedom.  
“Agent, he is a hostile force, _part of the Red Room project_ , if you think I’m going to just let him out of my sight, think again.”  
Natasha snarled and glared and Steve could see the silent battle going on between them. Fury was trying to use his rank and biology to force Natasha into submission, but Natasha was a very strong girl.  
“Give him to Steve.”  
“What?” Steve, Clint and Tony all turned to look at Natasha.   
Fury actually looked like he might be about to concede to that. “That will work.”  
“No it won’t.” Steve had been about to say the exact same thing, but _Tony_ beat him to it. “Cap will be compromised. As a team, we can’t have that.”   
“Like you can talk.” He wouldn’t be compromised. Not one bit, but he would find it very difficult to care for someone who he knew so well, but who couldn’t remember him at all.   
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He tried not to feel satisfied that he had gotten under Tony’s skin.  
Just to spite Tony, he lifted his head. “I can take care of Bucky.” Tony sounded like he was choking on something for a moment. “There are benefits. He’s unbonded, I can smell it. If he bonds to a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, it can only be good.”  
“You mean you.” Tony grumbled.  
“What? No! Goodness, no.” It would be nice, but… “He’s not the same person as I knew, and we didn’t bond before the war. It can’t happen.”  
“It’s settled then.” Fury handed a set of keys to Steve. “Take him to the tower tomorrow, after we’ve finished interrogating him, and you two can sort out lodging.”  
“Thank you, sir.” Natasha seemed bitter about Steve taking Bucky even though it was her suggestion, but she must have concluded that it was better than nothing.  
Fury turned to Natasha. “You’re still on probation.”

 

Steve didn’t hang around for the interrogation. He didn’t want to see a repeat performance of the previous day, and he wasn’t entirely sure if Tony would appreciate him meddling. He slipped into the room after everyone had left. “Hey James.” Steve crouched behind Bucky, and fitted the key Fury had given him into one of the padlocks. “If I let you go, do you promise not to hurt anyone?”  
“I’m not a child, Captain.”   
Steve took Bucky’s wrists, wrapping the fingers of one hand around both, and loosened the chains. “We’re going to take you to where I live for now. I might be able to get Natasha to visit, but I don’t think you’ll be allowed to leave.” He loosened the last of the chains and pushed them away, and they made a racket when they slid to the concrete floor. “Can you stand?”  
Steve had to provide support so Bucky could walk, and it felt like déjà vu. Apparently Bucky thought the same thing.  
“Taller…” He muttered. Steve smiled, and wrapped one of Bucky’s arms around his neck to hold him upright.  
“Yep. Come on. Let’s get you home.”   
When they got to the door, Bucky suddenly felt a little lighter, and he puzzled over Tony’s sudden aid. He pulled the door open, and helped Bucky limp down the hall. A two days tied to a chair would make even Steve’s legs feel stiff and weak, and then Steve had probably nearly broken Bucky’s leg when he hit it with his shield.   
“Fury said to take the Quinjet. Clint will fly us.” Tony was really too short to be trying to carry Bucky, but Steve appreciated the notion.   
“You don’t have to do this.” Steve felt goose bumps rise on his skin when he leant forwards to look at Tony, and his shirt slipped down enough to let part of Bucky’s metal arm slide against his skin.  
“Neither do you.” Tony tried snapping at him, but Steve could hear that it lacked bite. As it was, Tony’s ears were lax, rather than alert.  “Is everything alright with you?” Steve adjusted Bucky’s arm over his shoulders, taking more of the weight.   
“Totally, perfect, what’s it to you?”  
“As your team leader, I can’t have you compromised.” Steve chose his words carefully, mirroring what Tony had said about him yesterday.  
“Well, I’m not.” Tony ducked out from under Bucky’s arm. He was walking with far more ease now, and it was only Steve’s firm grip on his left hand that left him half draped over the blond. “Haven’t had a scotch for three weeks, slept for a few hours last night, _ate breakfast_. Can’t say the same for you.”   
Steve checked his watch. Ten twenty. “Still morning.” He raised an eyebrow. “Think you can walk?” He slowly let Bucky down, and when Bucky didn’t stumble, he just kept his hand on the brunet’s shoulder to guide him to the deck. “You know, I don’t _actually_ need to eat for several days.”  
“No one does.” Tony pointed out. “I’ve proved that several times.”  
“Have you ever considered that the reason that you’re so short is because you did week long stints without food when you were a teenager?”  
Tony bristled, his tail hardly twitching. “Like you can talk.” He snapped, suddenly defensive. “Have you seen what you looked like before the serum? That’s the only reason you’re taller than me.”  
Steve stopped, partly because they were just at the Quinjet, and partly because Tony’s words stung. He didn’t think before he spoke next. “At least I know what I am.” He ushered Bucky into the vehicle before he could regret his choice of words, and before Tony could retaliate, and had buckled himself in before he realised what he had just done. Tony was dead silent when he entered the hold of the Quinjet. “Uhh, look, I’m sorry about what I said. That was rude.”   
Tony didn’t reply, and Steve let Bucky take his bed, and slept on the couch instead.

 

 

The winter soldier happens you guys don’t need me to recap it

 

Steve expects Bucky to come back after a while, a couple of months maybe. He had started to remember after perhaps a week of being out of cryogenics, according to Natasha, so he’d expect more after so long. He gives him three months before going to find him.

 _I’m going to die_ , Steve thinks, his motorbike is directly on path to collide with Bucky, (who for some reason (Sam) is rather angry), his shield propped on the handlebars to protect himself from the gunfire. A few seconds before the bike hits, he jumps up onto the seat, grabs his shield, and back-tucks off the back of the bike. He lands just in time to see the Soldier leap up, land his foot on the back of the seat, and launch himself at Steve. Steve ducks and rolls, and somehow, _somehow_ he is anticipated, and he is thrown across the asphalt by the toe of the Soldier’s boot.  
He rolls, and just knows that he isn’t going to get up quickly enough so brings his shield around. The bang is deafening when the shield is punched. The impact jars his shoulders.  
He will not be ashamed to admit later that Natasha comes to his rescue.

 

“We can’t keep him in here.”  
“Watch me.”   
Steve has never seen Natasha so angry before, and it’s downright impressive. He’s also never found someone so little so terrifying, and he’s never seen anyone shout Fury down before, and that, he thinks, is even more impressive.  
“Agent, he is a hostile force, _part of the Hydra_ , if you think I’m going to just let him out of my sight, think again.”  
Natasha snarled and glared and Steve could see the silent battle going on between them. Fury was trying to use his rank and biology to force Natasha into submission, but Natasha was a very strong girl.  
“Give him to Steve.”  
“What?” Steve, Clint and Tony all turned to look at Natasha.   
Fury actually looked like he might be about to concede to that. “That will work.”  
“No it won’t.” Steve had been about to say the exact same thing, but _Tony_ beat him to it. “Cap will be compromised. As a team, we can’t have that.”   
“Like you can talk.” He wouldn’t be compromised. Not one bit, but he would find it very difficult to care for someone who he knew so well, but who couldn’t remember him at all.   
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He tried not to feel satisfied that he had gotten under Tony’s skin.  
Just to spite Tony, he lifted his head. “I can take care of Bucky.” Tony sounded like he was choking on something for a moment. “There are benefits. He’s unbonded; I can smell it. If he bonds to an agent, it can only be good.”  
“You mean you.” Tony grumbled.  
“What? No! Goodness, no.” It would be nice, but… “He’s not the same person as I knew, and we didn’t bond before the war. It can’t happen.”  
“It’s settled then.” Fury handed a set of keys to Steve. “Take him to the tower tomorrow, after we’ve finished interrogating him, and you two can sort out lodging.”  
“Thank you, sir.” Natasha seemed bitter about Steve taking Bucky even though it was her suggestion, but she must have concluded that it was better than nothing.  
Fury turned to Natasha. “You’re still on probation.”

 

“Hey Bucky.” Steve crouched behind Bucky, and fitted the key Fury had given him into one of the padlocks. “If I let you go, do you promise not to hurt anyone?”  
“I’m not a child, Captain.”   
Steve took Bucky’s wrists, wrapping the fingers of one hand around both, and loosened the chains. “We’re going to take you to where I live for now. I might be able to get Natasha to visit, but I don’t think you’ll be allowed to leave.” He loosened the last of the chains and pushed them away, and they made a racket when they slid to the concrete floor. “Can you stand?”  
Steve had to provide support so Bucky could walk, and it felt like déjà vu. Apparently Bucky thought the same thing.  
“Taller…” He muttered. Steve smiled, and wrapped one of Bucky’s arms around his neck to hold him upright.  
“Yep. Come on. Let’s get you home.”   
When they got to the door, Bucky suddenly felt a little lighter, and he puzzled over Tony’s sudden aid. He pulled the door open, and helped Bucky limp down the hall. A two days tied to a chair would make even Steve’s legs feel stiff and weak, and then Steve had probably nearly broken Bucky’s leg when he hit it with his shield.   
“Fury said to take the Quinjet. Clint will fly us.” Tony was really too short to be trying to carry Bucky, but Steve appreciated the notion.   
“You don’t have to do this.” Steve felt goose bumps rise on his skin when he leant forwards to look at Tony, and his shirt slipped down enough to let part of Bucky’s metal arm slide against his skin.  
“Neither do you.” Tony tried snapping at him, but Steve could hear that it lacked bite. As it was, Tony’s ears were lax, rather than alert.  “Is everything alright with you?” Steve adjusted Bucky’s arm over his shoulders, taking more of the weight.   
“Totally, perfect, what’s it to you?”  
“As your team leader, I can’t have you compromised.” Steve chose his words carefully, mirroring what Tony had said about him earlier.  
“Well, I’m not.” Tony ducked out from under Bucky’s arm. He was walking with far more ease now, and it was only Steve’s firm grip on his left hand that left him half draped over the blond. “Haven’t had a scotch for three weeks, slept for a few hours last night, _ate breakfast_. Can’t say the same for you.”   
Steve checked his watch. Ten twenty. “Still morning.” He raised an eyebrow. “Think you can walk?” He slowly let Bucky down, and when Bucky didn’t stumble, he just kept his hand on the brunet’s shoulder to guide him to the deck. “You know, I don’t _actually_ need to eat for several days.”  
“No one does.” Tony pointed out. “I’ve proved that several times.”  
“Have you ever considered that the reason that you’re so short is because you did week long stints without food when you were a teenager?”  
Tony bristled, his tail hardly twitching. “Like you can talk.” He snapped, suddenly defensive. “Have you seen what you looked like before the serum? That’s the only reason you’re taller than me.”  
Steve stopped, partly because they were just at the Quinjet, and partly because Tony’s words stung. He didn’t think before he spoke next. “At least I know what I am.” He ushered Bucky into the vehicle before he could regret his choice of words, and before Tony could retaliate, and had buckled himself in before he realised what he had just done. Tony was dead silent when he entered the hold of the Quinjet. “Uhh, look, I’m sorry about what I said. That was rude.”   
Tony didn’t reply, and Steve let Bucky take his bed, and slept on the couch instead.

 

If he thought that one Russian super-spy-person was bad enough, then he hadn’t been anticipating the arrival of another one very well. It was worse that the new one knew Natasha, and that Steve used to know him, before, you know, the ice.

"America's great you know, coming up with the likes of you two." T  
"Is that so?" S  
"Yeah, must be the little bit of patriot within me." T  
"Oh my god you didn't just say that." B  
"You set me up for that." S

 

 

ABO II

Under the constant surveillance of Jarvis, they have very little opportunity to spend time together. Apparently, it's not common knowledge that Natasha's his daughter, so any time they want to talk, they have to go outside, or to Natasha's room, which they did once, and had to answer a myriad of awkward questions and he doesn't want to do that again because Natasha's mate (he's so happy she found someone, considering... everything) wouldn't stay in the same room as him for the next week, until Nat dragged him into the kitchen, initiated emergency blackout on surveillance and sternly explained everything, including that James was her mother (Clint had blanched at that, and paled, James leered for effect, and laughed when Clint turned a delicate shade of green.)   
"Mat, stop scaring him."   
He consented, and that was that. Sadly, the blackouts can only go for about a minute before Tony investigates.  
So Natasha shows him New York instead, and they talk out in the open. She tells him about how she woke up without him, and they told her that he was dead, how she got caught in Budapest, meeting Steve for the first time, she even admitted that it was the first time she had ever been frightened, how even now, she's scared even now that if she opens up to Clint that she'll bond to him despite her unique biology.  
"Hey, I know my memory's shot to bits, but it's amazing. I think. Maybe."  
In return, he tells her what he can remember about Before. It isn't much, but there's more each week.   
He remembers school, remembers what a scrawny runt Steve had been, and he remembers the army and being caught by Schmidt's men. That's about it for now.   
Today though, he's posed with a slightly more physical issue. "My arm is broken."  
"Is this like last time when you went into heat and jammed three fingers because of all the things that could make adamantium rust, it's Omega slick?"  
"No. Damn, I forgot about that. No, like, it's playing up. Sometimes it all seizes up, and others I can't control it and it kind of jerks around."  
"Take it to Tony." She says.  
"Yes, award for best idea goes to; Tash." He frowns. "It's bad enough that Tony thinks I'm poaching his Alpha. He won't help me."  
"They're not mated."  
"Steve and Tony aren't... What? No, I thought they were bonded?"  
Natasha barks out a laugh. "They are, that's what's so funny. Tony's got some stupid Alpha complex, and Steve has so many issues that stem from you _dying_ that he doesn't know where to begin, and yes, I'm saying that you are indirectly stopping Steve from moving on. You should be ashamed of yourself."  
James feels his stomach twist. She might be joking, but she's right. "Yeah, I'll ask him."

 

He gets face to face with Tony in his workshop before he realises that he's not sure what to say. Well, he's always been good at making up some bullshit story or another.  
"Well? Out with it. I don't have all day." Tony's confrontational, and aggressive, and James doesn't expect anything less. It's kind of hot.  
"My arm's broken."  
"Why is that my problem? Take it to Bruce."   
James instinctively arcs back, and snarls. They're both too different as Omegas to really clash horribly, Tash has just made him feel bad about approaching Tony. "I'll rephrase that for you. It's not working properly, malfunctioning."  
"What-"  
He pulls his gloves off with his teeth, and then his jacket a little more awkwardly. He drops it next to his gloves and pins Tony with a look.  
"Oh." Tony is speechless for once, apparently. Something flashes across his face, raw and intense. "Come here, Dumm-E, bring a stool over."  
He's pushed onto the seat, and Tony stands in front of him and leans forwards to peer at James' left arm. Tony kind of smells nice. James bears a grin for a moment. Surely it's not possible...  
"So what's wrong with it?" Tony's holding his arm out straight, bending each of the fingers one by one, flexing the wrist. It sticks a little.  
"That. The applications aren't working, the shoulder's sticking when I try to put it back down."  
"Does it come off?"   
James puts his hand over the shoulder and pushes his fingers into the grooves where the arm attaches. It whirs and clicks, and Tony's left holding an arm.  
"Kinky." Tony leers at him lasciviously.   
"That's what I said." He sighs dramatically. "Never had a chance to test it like that though." He looks up, and Tony is standing between his knees, still smirking. "I feel like I have to be a little more narcissistic to want you like this."  
"Good thing I fill the quota for both of us."  
They're probably too close, shouldn't be doing this. Tony and Steve are bonded, well, too stupid to realise they are, James is still bonded to Steve and knows it won't be reciprocated. This is not the best idea he's ever had. It still feels inherently _right_.  
Tony breaks the distance and they crash together. James stands, he's taller than Tony by a few inches, and he uses it to tower over him, grabs his hair, and it's too much like fighting, too much like them.  
Tony fights dirty too, he drops James' arm, it clatters loudly when it hits the concrete, hands favouring to touch James instead, fingers twisting into his singlet, and bites the soldier's lip, urges him backwards until a bench is digging into the small of his back. He drops Tony's head and puts his hand on the edge of the table, pushes back with teeth and body, demands more space. He can taste blood and coconuts.  
"Oh, yeah, okay, we can do this." Tony pulls away. He's flushed and panting, and there is blood on his teeth and lips.  
"Yeah." James reaches out and wipes some of the blood off Tony's lip. "I promise I'm better in bed with two arms." He sticks his thumb in him mouth and licks the blood off.  
"Now you're just skipping the queue."  
James reaches out and fits his hand around Tony's hip. Tugs him closer. "Maybe," he laughs. He licks up Tony's jaw, presses the flat of his teeth to the joint. "But it is my arm, I only have one of them."  
"It probably just needs a tune up." And only Tony Stark could talk work whilst pressing a hard on into his hip, hands fumbling to pull his shirt off. "Bit of lube, good as-fuck!"  
James hadn't heard the Avenger's alarm before, but it was unmistakable.   
"I. Hate. New York." Tony turns and flings himself across the lab, dives his hands into a shelf and pulls tubs off it, reads, and replaces them just as quickly. He throws one at James, and calls for the Mark IX. It's a thing of beauty, sleek lines, smooth joints, much like James' arm, but more functional. Bigger. Flashier.  
He is dressed in the suit up to his elbows, and the helmet is still waiting for him, when he dashes back across the lab. He snatches the jar off James, and demands for the arm. He smears some metallic gunk into the joints, manipulates them quickly, with clear practice in the movements. "Here, should be right for now."  
James takes it back and clicks it into place. Feeling sparks up the arm and through his shoulder, almost too intense. It's this that he hates most about removing his arm.  
When he blinks the stars out of his eyes, Tony's fully suited up, waiting, apparently. "Hold on, we're flying Air Iron Man today."  
"But I'm not an Avenger."  
"Fuck that. You're bored and horny and just got cockblocked by some jerk arse who wants to rule the world. Don't try to tell me that you don't want to hit them."  
"Can't argue with that." James steps forwards and does as Tony asked, and the next thing he knows, they're soaring over New York, following the path of... Skittles.  
"Really?" Tony asks. "Are we facing Sargent Saccharine or something?" He's obviously turned the comms on. He must get a reply, because they start a descent, James is dropped to the ground, right between Natasha and Steve. She takes one look at him, the healing bite and traces of blood on his lip, the notable lack of jacket and gloves, and raises an eyebrow.  
"Oh shut up." He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth to clean all the blood off it.  
"What's this? Bucky, why are you here?" Steve had turned his attention to them.  
"Sassy pants made me."  
"Replace 'sassy' with 'sexy', and you're on track." Tony lands next to them with a clang, and stands. He's much taller in the suit. James wonders what it would be like to be pinned and forced by the suit. He didn't think it would've been a sex thing for him, but maybe it is.  
"So what are these things?" Steve gestures to the ground.  
"Skittles." James and Tony reply immediately.   
"Totally harmless." James crouches and picks a few up. Ignoring Steve's mention that he might be wrong and that they might be poisoned or something, he tips them into his mouth. "Yeah, you know, the only thing I'm going to die of eating these is a sugar overdose."  
Steve swats him over the head. "Okay, Iron Man, contact S.H.I.E.L.D., tell them not to send Hawkeye or Bruce, we'll start clean-up, and-"  
The skittles bounce on the ground, and skitter around a bit. "And?" Tony prompts.  
"I think S.H.I.E.L.D. can do clean-up. We weed to find the source of these things."  
There's no Sargent Saccharine, but there is a machine that is unattended and buried in candy. They have trouble clearing enough of the machine for Tony to short it out, but it stops, and James eats enough candy to feel sick.  
"I'm taking this home." Tony declares once they dig the machine out. It's rather small, for something that produced several (hundred) tonnes of skittles from nothing. "Imagine if Dumm-E could give me skittles when I wanted him to?"  
"I didn't get to punch anyone." James laments.

 

"That was really anticlimactic." They're walking back, James has a pocketful of skittles, although he's not really interested in eating them right now. It's more the novelty of being able to say that he has a pocketful of skittles.  
Also he ate too many skittles before and his stomach hurts.  
"Compared to what?" Natasha has a sly grin plastered to her face.   
"I've done recon more interesting than that." He points out, steering away from what Nat wants to talk about. Steve is right there.  
"How's your arm then?"   
"What?" Steve glances over. "You didn't say anything was wrong with your arm."  
"Nothing major, I swear. I'll take it back to Stark when we get back and he can make sure that there's nothing wrong with it." James glares at his daughter. Then realises how absurd this situation is. He laughs, and has to stop walking.  
"You alright, James?" Natasha frowns gently.  
He's not sure how to explain himself, so he just slips one arm around both of their waists, and pulls them close. "I've missed you both."  
Natasha fusses and pulls herself free when she's deemed them to have hugged for long enough, but Steve doesn't. James sinks into the feeling and settles into a soft smile. He could get used to this again. Natasha looks at them both for a long moment, surveying, calculating. "Come on, I think it's story time back at the tower."  
"Story time. What?" James realises what she means and releases Steve abruptly. "Nyet."  
She lifts her chin and stands as tall as she can. She can't pull the age card on him, but she can pull rank on him. He frowns against the Alpha pheromones she's letting off.  
"We have to tell him sooner or later." She's switched to Russian, good enough. They start walking again.  
"Tell him what?" He replies in kind. It was an accident that he had used Russian just before, but it suits this well. "That you're his kid and I'm still bonded to him and that sure, it's great and it gets me out of bed in the mornings, but it sucks because I see him and Stark and I'm really happy that they've bonded but I'm not because it hurts?"  
"I wouldn't use those words..."  
"Tash, he will feel obligated to stick with me if I say that, regardless of what it will do to him or how it will make him feel."  
"What's going on?" Steve's curiosity finally gets the better of him.  
"Reminiscing." Natasha says instantly, easily slipping back to English. "Sorry." She's got the sheepish act on, and anyone who didn't know her would believe it.  
When they get back to the tower, Steve goes to change, and James follows Natasha to her room.   
"I don't think we should tell him everything."  
"Then what should we tell him?"  
"That you're our kid. No, wait, hear me out. Bonds won't magically work if you tell the people about them. If Steve knows he's bonded to Star-Tony, it won't do anything but make him nervous and awkward. And there's something else..." He's not sure what to say. It was an odd feeling. "When I went to see Tony about my arm."  
"So that's who bit you."  
"In my defence, he started it."  
"So, did you fight, or...?" She deliberately left it open.  
"Or. But not just that, I've hardly spoken to him before, and he smelt really nice,"  
"Nice as in Alpha?"  
"No, I could smell the Omega in him better than I should. It's like the way Clint smells to you, I guess."  
"I can't believe I'm going to say this, you being my mother and all, but I think you should sleep with Stark."  
"Is that a good idea?"  
"Just do it."

 

"Sir, Sergeant Barnes is here to see you."  
"Save. Let him in." Tony flicks the displays aside and spins his chair around to face the door. "Haven't you been promoted yet?"  
Barnes-Bucky, Tony supposes, that's what Steve calls him-smiles broadly. It's a nice smile, if a little toothy. Sharkish. Predatory. "I have. But it's a bit awkward having everyone call you 'Sergeant First Class Barnes' all the time. A bit pratty, too." Bucky crosses the room.   
"So, what can I do for you?" Tony rolls his chair closer and grabs Bucky's wrist.   
"Well, you did promise to fix my arm properly." He hums when Tony sniffs the palm. He smells like musk and honey and sweat. "So we'll start there and see what happens?"  
"You'll have to leave it here and I'll rework it. Should only take a day or two." He releases Bucky's hand and wriggles his fingers. The sergeant removes the limb and hands it over. Tony puts it on the bench. "Scan that, create a wire framework, and make a private folder to put it in, umm, call it Bucky for now, coded to me and Sergeant Barnes only."  
"Yes sir."  
Tony presses into Bucky's space, who holds his ground and doesn't back off. Tony doesn't budge, he's surprised that Bucky didn't move, and he still doesn't move when Tony growls at him.   
Tony wants Bucky, he's yet to explore the reasons behind it, and he's attractive enough so he doesn't really care, but he wasn't expecting Bucky to bite his mouth when he growled. Tony freezes, hands halfway to pushing him away, but tongue follows teeth, and he shakes himself out of it and proceeds.  
"Couch." He mumbles into the others' mouth. "Over there." He manoeuvres Bucky to the wall and a bit to the left, to the couch that's hardly visible, mainly because its covered with so much concrete dust an spare parts that is blends in pretty well with the surroundings; an urban chameleon.  
Tony kicks some of the junk off unceremoniously, and others a little more carefully, some of it's important or fragile, and if spare Iron Man parts can't handle being kicked off a couch with vengeance, then he's done something wrong. Bought them up badly maybe. No respect for their parents, yada yada.  
He turns back and grabs Bucky, and offsets him enough to drop him on the couch, fine grey powder rising violently in protest.  
"That can't be healthy." Bucky manages before Tony cuts him off. He uses his shin to spread Bucky's legs apart, and kneels in front of him. Bucky reaches out and cards his fingers through Tony's hair. Concrete dust filters out as it unsettles.  
"I could get used to this."  
"Don't." Tony warns, it's probably not as effective as he could hope, because he can't stop grinning. "But feel honoured, I don't usually go down on people the first time." He works the button of Bucky's jeans, and thinks that he should've done this before getting to the couch because fabric rarely settles in an advantageous manner.  
"Does that mean that this is going to happen more than once?" Bucky's voice is very level and calm, and that's just not fair, considering Tony's breathing hot air and a litany of promises across his prick, which is definitely getting hard.   
"I'll tell you later." He says, and keeps his teeth out of the way when he takes the head of Bucky's cock into his mouth.  
"Oh, _fuck >." Tony hums merrily when he hears the thump of Bucky's hand hitting the cushion. Except it showers them in a cloud of dust. "Shit, sorry." Bucky stands, using his hand to push Tony back, away from the dusty couch, then away from Bucky. He kneels too, spreads his knees apart until they're the same height and breathing the same air. "Lock the door." He says, orders. Tony would object, except he has no interest in stopping whatever it is they have started due to a distraction on any smaller scale than the end of the world.  
"J, lock down." It doesn't come out as a full sentence, not by a long shot, obscured by Bucky's fingers in his mouth. They ignore Jarvis' demure 'yes, sir', (sarcastic bastard) and when Tony goes to push Bucky down, he winds up on his back, the soldier straddling his hips, fingers still in his mouth.   
Fuck, that's hot.  
And scary.  
But mostly hot.  
Tony scrabbles against the concrete, there's something sticking into his shoulder, maybe a wrench of some variety, it's on that level of discomfort, so it's likely, but gains no purchase, but decides that he doesn't really need any, not when Bucky rolls his hips like that, and he's really got to thank whoever taught him that because its a serious talent. Unless it's Steve, Steve doesn't need thanking.  
The fingers are gone from his mouth, and then Bucky's stripping his singlet off, and Tony really wants to look at the housing where the arm fits into his body but he also wants to do the sex, and the joint can wait so sex it is. He sits up and drags his shirt off, tosses it aside, and looks back.  
Bucky is compact, muscly in a small way. They're there, defined, but nowhere near the comical over-the-top of Thor, or even Steve. He's got the wiry strength of years of hard labour, fighting and tough periods of bad or little nutrition.  
Tony chuckles and presses his open mouth to a nipple, much like himself, he supposes, except Bucky has the tell tail signs of an Omega who cares for himself, enough pudge around the hips to grip on to, the healthy glowing skin, whatever.  
He leaves a trail of saliva across Bucky's chest to his neck, and sucks a mark onto him just as the other is undoing Tony's jeans. He leans back with the intent to inspect the mark, to see if its obvious or deep enough, but times it badly, and his eyes flick down instead when Bucky takes him in hand and does _something_ that makes his hips jerk helplessly.   
"Good?" But the tone of his voice suggests that he already knows what it's like. "Never been with an Omega before, 's gonna be weird not having anything shoved up my ass." He sniggers, and then his whole body shudders. Tony just lets him do all the hard work and litters his neck and shoulders with little marks.  
He wants everyone else to know that Bucky isn't to be touched.  
"Haven't done this for years." He finally says, more to a livid, purpling bruise just over Bucky's heart than to Bucky himself.  
"Done what?" Bucky's got both of them in hand now, pre come and spit making it all a lot easier.  
"Sex with clothes on." He strains to remember, must've been... "A girl called Maya, I was twenty two and it was in Switzerland."  
"Me too, the sex part, not the girl." He clarifies. Bucky’s neutral accent is slipping, and some old Brooklyn drawl is slipping in. Tony’s hips jerk.  
"Well, details." Tony huffs. He's trying to distract himself from the gradual heat that's spreading through his body. He knows that if he submits to it he'll come, and he would never let himself live it down if he came before Bucky.  
Bucky groans and jerks his hips roughly, and Tony sees stars. "Switzerland, '43, I went in-ter heat, and Steve fucked me agains’ a tree."  
He doesn't get halfway through his explanation, before one or both of them lose it, Tony's not sure, but when his brain reboots, Bucky's panting against the soft underside of his jaw, which feels suspiciously wet and sore, and he feels... Odd.  
As it is, he still feels like he needs to come even though he knows he already has; the sticky evidence is all over his stomach and jeans.  
He feels full and less lonely.  
When Bucky's breathing slows, he groans and presses his head into Tony's neck even harder. "Fucking fuck."  
Tony's got a vague idea of what happened. "Did we..."  
"Yes." Bucky wraps his arm around Tony's waist, smearing semen across his skin. "Nothing personal, but I really don't need this kind of complication in my life."  
"And you said that before I got to tell you that you're going to inherit a Fortune 500 company if I die."  
Bucky tips his head back and laughs openly, giddy warmth spreads through Tony. "Could be worse," he says after a while, "you just inherited Tash."  
"What."  
"Natasha. If I die you're her legal guardian, providing that Steve doesn't want custody."  
"Oh my god." Tony ducks his head to look at Bucky in the eye. They're a nice brown, the brown of oiled wood. Bucky looks away. "No, hey, you can't keep secrets from me anymore. We're bon- shit. We're bonded." It hits him with what feels like the force of a freight-train, and he struggles for air. "Shit. Shit shit _shit_." He can't do bonded, he's got a life to live, things to build and battles to fight. He can't spend every waking moment, and then some, worrying about the intricacies of another person's wellbeing, when he can't keep himself in check. He can't have someone in his head, knowing his every thought and intention. Knowing how he really feels, knowing when he's lying.  
He can already feel the throb of Bucky's mind pressed up alongside his own, projecting confusion and contentedness and concern.  
Bucky brings his hand up so he's cradling Tony's head, and shushes him with mind and touch._

_So. Existential crisis, check.  
He can totally do this. He can do bonded to Bucky, he can do pretending to be normal when he feels the urge to fucking _snarl_ at Clint when he laughs at whatever Bucky just told him, he can do ignoring how occasionally his mood will abruptly alter and suddenly he feels like curling up and going to sleep, just because Bucky's tired, he can do inexplicable pain and exhaustion probably because Bucky's sparring or training or whatever.  
He can't do the ridiculous pining.  
Oh god, Bucky loves Steve so much, so much more than he loves Tony, so much that it hurts, and he's not surprised, and he's okay with that, because he and Bucky barely know each other, and then they had sex once and now they're bonded and doing this all backwards, but when has Tony ever done stuff in increments, and following the steps like he should? They're learning about each other, about how Tony can be an insufferable ass and can make Bucky's mornings hell because Tony hasn't slept and is more awake via caffeine rather than more sensible means, about how Bucky broods over things that he's done, to the point where Tony has to stop soldering because he's thinking more about shoving a knife between someone's shoulder blades than his work, about how they both have to stop what they're doing the moment one of them starts thinking about sex too much, because they're both perfectly OK with feeding of each other's ideas, whispering emotions to each other through their Bond, about what they would do to each other, were Tony not overseeing (read: actually doing) the reconstruction of something or a rather, and Bucky under his strict house arrest, courtesy of S.H.I.E.L.D.  
So he's okay with Bucky loving Steve, and he gets that Bucky's bonded to Steve, but its entirely unfulfilled because Steve's not doing _something_ , but Bucky's shielded that thought process very well because he always stops thinking about it before it gets any further.  
But he's not okay with how he'll shake himself back to awareness when he realises that he is staring at Steve with the kind of obsession that only The Suits can garner, he's not okay with wondering, even abstractly, if Steve's blush goes all the way down, not okay with catching himself thinking how attractive, or hot, or sexy-whatever, Steve is.  
Some part of him always feels smug when this happens, and he knows it's less part of him, and more part of Bucky.  
At least there hasn't been any battles yet.  
At least no one (okay, being realistic, except Natasha) knows.  
He can't possibly imagine having to explain this to Pepper...  
Except he's going to have to, and is going to have to apply to the National Bonded Registry.   
Pepper's going to kill him.  
At least Bucky is an Omega. If he were anything else, Tony would lose Stark Industries, even if he's made Pepper CEO. Bond rights have changed, but not that much.  
The inheriting Natasha bit, however scares him more. Not because it's Natasha, well, okay partly, it is, but it’s more because of what Bucky said. Steve wouldn't inherit Natasha unless they were related, which makes Steve her father, which seems wrong on all levels, but when he thinks about it, it seems okay, so long as Steve knows.  
Does Steve know? He must wonder about it so much that eventually Bucky gets really angry and overwhelmingly tells him 'yes' through their bond, and Tony has a headache for the rest of the day, and hopes that at least, Bucky's got one too.  
He's vindictive like that.  
At least the make up sex is great.  
There are lots of hickeys and teeth and Bucky has two arms, and Tony's never been with anyone who can lift him up so easily, but it's really hot, and the bonded part of the sex is even better, because nothing Bucky has to do can surprise him, because it's flit through both their minds at least once already.   
That and he can feel it when Bucky comes too, like _feel_ , feel, not just feeling the way he hitches and goes limp for a fraction of a second, the way he vibrates when he hums.  
Back to back orgasms whilst out of heat are as fun as _fuck_  
It's fucking awesome, and if everyone misses the impossibly noticeable marks, he's going to strangle someone. Because he had a (small) hickey for a few days after last time, and sure, it was hidden under his jaw, and people were bound to miss it, and Bucky healed up almost overnight, which sucked, but this time he's certain that people are going to _see_ that Bucky's been claimed.   
He likes to rule through threats and not action.   
Call it part of his Alpha complex._

_"This is horrifying." Bucky admits the next time he and Tash get out of the tower. He knows he's being dramatic, he knows that Natasha's about to call bullshit on him, but it is, it's horrifying. He can't hide much from Stark anymore, he's being forced to literally wear his heart on his sleeve.  
"This is ridiculous." She retorts. "You're an adult. I shouldn't have to be guiding you through this!"   
And that's about as whiny she gets.  
It's also all the warning he gets before she drops him on the spot. Not literally. She just doesn't hang around later in the gym.   
She leaves him in there, alone, with Steve and Tony, who are sparring.  
This is not OK.  
To the nth degree.  
That's _his_ Tony, and _his_ Steve. And they're fighting, and he doesn't know who to defend, should things get out of hand.  
And he can't just stand around looking stupid, so he turns his back and continues with his weights circuit. That doesn't block Tony from his head, and he can feel the growing frustration in his Omega. Tony knows that Steve is taking it easy on him, letting him get a punch or two in, and he's getting more and more angry. Apparently, Steve is treating Tony like a child.  
He drops the weight he's holding, nearly on his chest, catching it with his prosthetic arm when his wrist flares in pain. He sets the bar back on the rack and glances over, and Tony's standing, his wrist bent into an awkward position by Steve's large paws. Several ways to escape flicker through his mind, and Tony catches on to one and holds, and he twists, ducks, and kicks Steve's leg out from under him. Steve retaliates, and Tony hits the mats as well, but a little more soundly pinned than last time.  
Bucky lets Steve have his moment of glory, but his shoulders are starting to ache and Tony is not going to call it off anytime soon, so he calls out to them. "Alright Steve, I think he's learnt his lesson." Steve loosens the hold so that they stop hurting, but his brows tighten a little as he stares at the back of Tony's neck.  
"Tony, what is this?" Bucky feels Steve swell with curiosity, and he adjusts his grip so one of his hands are free, and brushes the mark with his fingers.  
Bucky resists the urge to snarl, and violent anger lances through him. He knows that most of it comes from Tony, but a bit of it is from him to, and it scares him that even for a moment, he wanted to attack Steve.  
Steve leans down and sniffs the nape of Tony's neck. Tony squirms abruptly, looking for an escape, he feels hedged in, trapped, they're drowning in Alpha scent and water. Bucky shakes himself out of it and crosses over to them.  
Steve smells again, and then jerks back, eyes wide. "You..." His tone isn't accusatory, just surprised. His eyes flick up to Bucky.  
He can feel the startled rabbiting of Tony's heart as if it were his own, and he doesn't know what to do, because if he tells the truth, then he ruins all chances of making things right between Tony and Steve, and that's the most important thing, because neither he nor Tony will safely make it through more than one heat without an Alpha. Sorry, without Steve, because Tony had to go and bond with him, too.  
Tony stiffens, and it's then that Bucky knows that there is no going back. And he had been so careful so far.  
"How the fuck do you keep that a secret?" Tony shouts. He slams his palm on the ground. "Let me up, Rogers. Your mate and I need a chat."  
Steve sits back so he's only pinning Tony's legs, and even then, only half heartedly. Bucky would've had Steve on his back by now. Probably in a chokehold. Tony doesn't do so, just squirms awkwardly.   
"I don't need to know your weird kinks, Barnes."   
Bucky thinks, very deliberately, about the feel of sex with Steve, the slow and languid kind after the initial frenzy of heat, where he takes care of everything because there is no energy to do anything but lay there and let him. Because Steve knows how to make it good.  
Tony splutters in his mind, scrambling to think of something else. _Anything_. Because he doesn't want to admit that it's making him interested and a little horny.  
"I think I'm missing something." Steve declares, all innocent eyes and big pouty lips. Bucky could kiss him... Bucky could watch Tony kiss him. "Are you two having a conversation?" He gets an amused feel from Steve. Tony colours it with a certain level of sarcastic uncaring that means he's really actually interested in the fact that he can mutely sense what Steve's feeling.  
Bucky stops thinking about sex, and looks up from Tony to Steve. "A spat, I think." He's got to keep his head. He's been hiding very personal information from both of them, and they're going to want to know everything. He has to find a way to placate them both, without giving too much away. He takes a seat beside them, and gestures for Steve to let Tony up._

_Clint's hair is short and prickly under her fingers, familiar, and comforting. His ears are a direct counterpoint to this, soft and silky, and its only through a lot of training that Clint isn't actively pressing his head into her palm as she rubs one softly.  
Clint is sitting in the uncomfortable kind of chair that Fury reserves for his visitors, she's standing behind him, Fury is behind his desk, and Phil is standing just to her right, trying to pretend that this isn't the most unusual conversation he's sat through.  
He's been through a few.  
"You lost me somewhere between Stark and Barnes bonding, and leaving them in the gym together, alone, with Steve." Fury thinks it’s hilarious, just like she does. At least he has the decency to be aware that it probably wasn't the best thing to do.   
"No, I don't think you missed anything, sir." She smiles demurely. She feels Phil inch closer to her, and she shoots a glare at him. He freezes to the spot. "Now, I'd hate to seem rude, but I did have my yearly plan set up so my heat would start in a few hours, and these guys are getting a little twitchy. They've only been waiting for a year and a half for it, and I think they'll be too volatile to move soon."  
"Get out. I don't want my office ruined. Again."   
Her smile sweetens. "I had no part in that."  
"We'll have to discuss the matter of the other three later. Just make sure you get them all out in one piece. I hate to admit it, but they're valuable."  
"I bet you all a tenner that Stark comes out with hickeys in the shape of Steve's teeth." Clint pipes up._

_Tony doesn't have hickeys in the shape of Steve's teeth, but he does look confused a lot, and zones out even more.  
Natasha doesn't know what Bucky told them, but nothing seems to have changed, and that's worrying.  
Steve wasn’t sure what shocked him more when he got to his room. The face that Tony was sitting on his bed (naked) and not Bucky, or the smell. The heat smell could be Bucky’s—the Omega had ridden out his last heat in Steve’s room because Tony _still_ hadn’t given him a room, and that had only been a few days ago (Steve hadn’t gotten around to changing the sheets or airing the room yet)—or it was Tony who was broadcasting the scent. More likely the latter. The scent was too fresh, too appealing for him. He gripped the doorframe tightly, skin stretching white across his knuckles.  
“Umm… hi.” He closed his eyes briefly, hardly longer than a blink, and forced his head clear. He couldn’t just jump on the bed and do _things_ , what if Tony decided that he didn’t want it _after_ Steve knotted and Steve didn’t want that kind of responsibility. “You know, I might just go and sleep on the couch tonight. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.” He lingered for a moment longer, enough to let the scent lodge in the back of his mind, slotting alongside familiar and similar scents.  
He turned, and forced himself to leave. The rest of the corridor smelt exactly the same as his room did, and he forced himself to curtail the tentacles of lust in his brain. He wasn’t going to just throw himself at the engineer because Tony was in heat, and in his bed. Naked. It wasn’t that the tactic wouldn’t work on him, he was just not going to do anything that an Omega didn’t want.  
He found that Bucky was in the gym already, on the floor below, and gave him a wave before heading over to the chin up bar that Tony had reinforced last year because Clint had a bet going that Steve couldn’t do a chin-up whilst weighted down so Thor had clung to his hips like some over grown koala and Steve succeeded, but the bar had not.  
He had felt bad about it, though.  
He collected two thirty kilo weights and swung himself up so his knees were hooked over the bar, and curled himself up until his eyes were level with his knees. He swung back down, the weights pulling his arms towards the earth.  
And repeat.  
“Rough night?” The next time he swung down, Bucky was standing in front of him. Steve just grunted, and hauled himself back up.  
The next time he looked at Bucky, the Omega was eyeing his whole body, probably a habit, part of his Russian training. “You look a little… troubled there.” He just caught Bucky gesturing towards his hips, and Steve grit his teeth and kept moving.  
“Nothing too bad.” Steve continued with his sit-ups. “You weren’t complaining in Switzerland.”  
Bucky was suddenly very close to him, smelling very warm, and sweet. “What makes you think I’m complaining now?” Bucky’s hands were threaded through his hair, cupping the back of his head. The metal fingers were cold against his skin. Steve dropped both weights when the Winter Soldier crushed their lips together, and grabbed his shoulders to steady himself.  
Steve did his best to push Bucky away politely. They weren’t bonded, and Steve was down here to bury his lust, not encourage it to grow.  
Well, that and he didn’t want Bucky. Not that, really. He wanted Bucky around as a friend, because Bucky was a great friend, and he was just getting his memories back, piece by piece. But he didn’t want to be Bucky’s mate anymore. That ship had sailed.  
God, he’s bad at explaining this. He does want to be Bucky’s mate?  
But he wanted to be Tony’s mate even more, and he might just be trying to do the right thing by Tony, make their first mating when Tony _wasn’t_ in heat. Or at least be there at the start of Tony’s next heat, so Tony could make the decision on a clear head. He’d feel absolutely awful if he got Tony pregnant by accident, and Tony wanted nothing to do with him in the first place.  
He feels selfish to want them both.  
And Tony is still his best friend, too.   
“You smell like Omega.”  
“So do you.” Steve pointed out. “My room still smells like you.”  
“Yeah, sorry about that, but that’s not my sce—”  
“Bucky, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. I won’t mate with someone I haven’t bonded with again.”  
Bucky scowled and pulled away, giving Steve plenty of space, leaving him with blood pooling in his head, and an empty feeling in his stomach. “But you’re not fucking Stark.”  
“ _Tony_ and I are not bonded.”  
Bucky sighed. “Steve, you’re beautiful, but you’re also incredibly dense.” Bucky patted the underside of his arm and walked away. Steve righted himself, screwed up his face in thought, and called after Bucky to wait._

_Tony didn’t even try to pull his punches on the bag, even though his unshielded knuckles were becoming bloodied and sore. Goodness knows he made a horrendous mistake in going to Steve’s room last night. Of course Steve wouldn’t want him. Steve had Bucky now, _again_ , of course they would be bonded, mated, whatever. Because Steve had so kindly helped Bucky out with his heat just last week, and then fumbled for an excuse to leave as quickly as possible when Tony was in the same situation. What the hell had he been thinking?  
Oh, and he was locked out of his alcohol stashes, and his heat had been two months late and it had thrown a spanner in the works, big time.  
Hence the bag hitting until his knuckles bled. It was distracting. He would be in his workshop, but he was locked out of that, too, until his heat was over. Because he did stupid things with stupid objects in his workshop whilst in heat.  
He shouldn’t’ve let himself be led on so easily, all those hours where Steve kipped on the couch whilst Tony worked, the times Steve completely disregarded Tony’s personal space bubble which _definitely exists, thank you very much_ , and carried him upstairs, sometimes kicking and screaming, for sleep ( _proper_ sleep, not half an hour on that ‘ratty old couch’, which Steve had spent more time sleeping on than Tony, lately), and when Steve bought coffee down at Tony’s request even though Tony had been joking the first time and Steve had followed through five minutes later with a large mug of steaming coffee.  
He was stupid and childish to even think that Steve was being more than kind and considerate to his teammate.  
His next punch slipped right off the bag, slicked with blood.  
“Come here.”  
Tony tensed and whirled around. Natasha was standing in the doorway holding a small pink-with-white-spots bag.  
“Jeez, Stark. I already know you’re desperately in heat. Don’t make me order you.”   
Tony pouted childishly. Was there anything that Natasha didn’t know? The smell of sweat and Alpha in the training room was strong enough to even mask that of an Omega in heat at this distance. He weighed up the odds that she would give him a ‘hand’.  
Very slim.  
Was she even Alpha? She smelt very nice from over here.  
“You won’t appreciate the infection you’ll get if you don’t cover those scrapes.” She walked over to the table that held the exercise logs and started unpacking things from the bag. “Your hands will blow up and you won’t be able to work for a month. And don’t give me the mitosis crap. Once the bacteria’s in you’re in trouble.”  
Tony whined, and squirmed on the spot until his tail drooped and he slunk over to Natasha, nuzzling his nose into the underside of her jaw when he was close enough. Her fingers sunk into his hair, nails sharp points against his skull, and pulled him away.  
“Sit.” She ordered.  
Tony almost fell to the floor, his body glad to have an order to follow, his mind less pleased. Natasha joined him and took one of his hands.  
“This heat is different.” She absently commented, somewhere between smearing antiseptic on his knuckles and putting the tube back on the ground by her knee.  
“Nonsense.” Tony pressed his thighs together more firmly, slightly embarrassed by the smell he was giving off. It made him seem weak and pathetic. But he was lying. This heat seemed worse than normal. Nothing he did seemed to help. He’d tried all his usual courses of action to cope with it, and the only thing that had had any effect so far was burying his head under Steve’s pillows, even though they smelt like the remnants of Barnes’ heat than Steve himself.  
He denied this information, blocked it from his head.  
“Tony,” Natasha tightened the bandage on his knuckles, and Tony tried not to wince, “there is no point trying to deny it.”  
“’m not.” Tony let her push him over so he was lying on his back. He wanted to resist, but his body ached to do something right, to please Natasha more. If he wasn’t in heat, he’d stand and leave, but his fucking instincts wanted him to behave.  
Natasha petted his stomach, tracing the lines of his ribcage with the heel of her palm. She crooned softly at him, gentle words that dulled the worst of his need for someone to control him fully.  
Abruptly, she stopped. “You don’t need me.”  
“No,” Tony reached out and his wandering fingers found her ankle, “I don’t need anyone, you’re just squishy and warm and give nice belly rubs.”  
“Tony, being alone is horrible. You should know that by now.” She pushed his hand off her ankle and shifted away. “You don’t have to heed this, but if he makes you laugh once, and think twice, don’t let him go, because you’re both not perfect, but you’re perfect for each other.”  
“Yeah, thanks. I’ll just go and find Thor then, shall I?”  
She smacked him across the forehead. “He won’t wait forever, he’s too broken for that, and we need you both at your best, Stark.” She scooped the bandages and antiseptic into her arms and left.  
Behind her, Tony groaned pathetically and rubbed his crotch to relieve some of the pressure.  
“He’s all yours.” Natasha murmured, pausing by the door.  
Steve just swallowed around the lump in his throat, watched Tony lay there and shudder and gasp and shamelessly moan obscenities with his hand down his pants, and left after a few minutes._

_Natasha had seen men become broken in combat, had broken a few herself, James included, and when she met Steve Rogers for the first time, she could see that he wasn’t quite shattered, but there were some deep cracks in him.  
She knew that everyone Steve knew was dead, just shadows in his peripherals, long forgotten by most, hated by few.  
Watching things between Tony and Steve from the sidelines was partly amusing, but mostly irritating. They skirted around each other most of the time, because if they didn’t, they either fought, or got on almost too well.  
They struck at each other’s weak points with surgical precision that she probably wouldn’t be able to achieve with such ease. With a handful of careless words, they had driven a barbed knife through each other’s armour, and twisted it.   
It was all a bit like a car crash. But in slow motion.  
They gravitated towards each other naturally, nowhere near polar opposites. They were both very smart and pigheaded, insanely talented, and very, very proud. Which is why Stark’s official file has him printed as an Alpha, but Natasha doesn’t have his ‘official’ file in her collection. She had his actual one, that proved, with the blood work, that he was Omega, that recounted how, in Afghanistan, he had been forced into a heat, a vast rush of mitosis and cell repair to keep him alive whilst Yinsen had operated on him, and then in the week that followed, how he had been forced to mate with any capable Alpha in the Ten-Rings camp in hopes of forcing a bond. Having Tony Stark bonded to one of the terrorists would be very advantageous to them. Bond laws in third world countries were still very ruthless and unfair for the person of a lower status.  
His file also proved him sterile, side effect of the palladium poisoning, and now, after her pen had scrawled the last few words under the addition notes segment, Tony Stark had bonded to Steve Rogers. (And vice versa, but she hadn’t edited Steve’s file yet.)  
There was literally no way it hadn’t happened. They were too well attuned to each other, avoided soft spots (most of the time), and Tony had even trusted Steve with the release codes for his armour, _and_ had trusted Steve with the knowledge of how to replace the arc reactor’s core in a tight spot.  
But there was no way they could’ve bonded, either. Natasha was yet to hear of people bonding without mating first, or without going through severe emotional trauma together.  
Unless they had mated and Natasha had somehow, not found out. But that was so unlikely that it was impossible. For one, she hadn’t been able to find any footage of them doing anything even remotely sexual together, unless Steve pinning Tony to the sparring mats twenty two times in a row counted, and then Tony hadn’t been making lewd jokes (not really a tell-tale, he tells lewd jokes anyway), and oh yeah, Steve had told her.  
Despite all their bickering, and all the layers of armour wrapped around them as a whole, they were a rather peculiar together.  
She knew for a fact that Steve spent nearly as much time in the workshop as Tony did, and she knew that Steve bought coffee down for Tony whenever he asked, and _everyone_ noticed that Tony was taking orders better in the field, albeit still with his own personal self-sacrificing artistic flair. But he was still following the orders Steve gave.  
But she couldn’t understand why Tony refused to admit the obvious, and why Steve didn’t just… actually, she knew why Steve wasn’t doing anything.  
Sadly, it was her fault.  
When she said that James should stay with Steve, she was hoping that Steve wouldn’t be so noble and wouldn’t get so caught up in trying to get James’ memories back, (which he was doing an admirable job of, she had to note) or, for that matter, to get so caught up in just taking care of her mother in general. Damnit, she could’ve taken James back to the helicarrier and subdued his heat herself, besides, technically, he wasn’t due for another two months or so, and she was thrown off. Probably Stark’s fault for that. Omega heats tended to synchronise with each other very quickly to ensure that the Alpha of the pack would have enough energy to deal with multiple Omegas.  
And Stark was in heat right now and she had tried setting them up. Of course it wouldn’t work though. It was written on their files now; “world’s most clueless bonded pair of boneheads.” Natasha put her pen aside and stood. There was time for one more ploy before Stark’s heat was out, right?_

_“Steve, you have to do something for him.” Natasha dropped a friendly reminder to Steve when she caught him in the kitchen next. “Haven’t you noticed it’s worse this time?”  
“Natasha, if he truly wishes for my help, he will ask for it himself.”  
“What, and showing up naked in your room isn’t asking enough?”  
“No, that’s acting on impulse. He did not ask me to stay, he did not say anything at all.”  
“Yeah, because you left, too red-faced and too quickly for him to have a chance to.” She frowned at him. “Steve, really, I can promise he won’t reject you. You have to remember he’s not the type of person to ask for help. He just doesn't know how to.”  
“And what if you’re wrong?” Steve put his dishes in the dishwasher neatly. “What if he doesn’t want it, _me_ , and I alienate him completely? He’s an important part of the team. I need him here.”  
“And if he really does need you, and you’re denying him what he, well, his body needs,” she paused, and the pause was enough to convey what would probably happen, “well, let’s say it will hurt you both, more than it will hurt your pride trying.”Steve and Tony go out and they’re talking before the meal and Steve isn’t paying attention and he goes to drink some of his cola an spills it down his front and they can’t stop laughing, and they’re both so glad that they just went to a quiet diner, and then giggle more because Tony fell over in his workshop earlier that day, for literally no reason, he just kind of fell over._


End file.
